


Chaos (hiatus)

by absol_lnk



Category: Splatoon
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Attempt at Humor, Blood and Gore, Car Chase, Chaos, End of the World, F/F, Gen, Guys I'm not a professional author please excuse bad plot devices, Implied/Referenced Sexual Assault, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Kidnapping, Mild torture, Minor Character Death, Swearing, Violence, Vomiting, You heard it right there WILL be a car chase
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-07-22
Updated: 2020-01-22
Packaged: 2020-07-10 12:06:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 15
Words: 27,586
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19905451
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/absol_lnk/pseuds/absol_lnk
Summary: An alternate universe where upon winning the Final Fest, Pearl decides to close off Inkopolis and plunge it into its own little contained mini-apocalypse. Three, Four, Eight, and co. aren't happy with that and set out to find answers. This would be easier if it weren't for people feeling like they could drop their morals on a whim.





	1. Prologue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Pearl tells everyone how it's gonna go.

The Final Fest had come and gone. It was by far the most unique event ever held. People who normally didn't participate and people who usually didn't even _care_ gave their alls on this one. Some decided to protest the Splatfest, believing that the winning team would actually be allowed to establish their respective "idealistic" worlds.

Pearl's team won, and the protesters were right.

After Lil' Judd had confirmed Team Chaos's win, Pearl made her way to the Off the Hook studio to make an announcement. Alone.

The news channel was interrupted by Pearl as hundreds of thousands, maybe even millions of Inkopolis citizens watched in anticipation.

For the first thirty seconds or so, Pearl just stood in front of the camera, wearing her Team Chaos outfit and a growing malicious grin on her face.

"Ladies and gentlemen," she finally announced, "We have a winner." She chuckled to herself for a moment. " _I wonder who it was!"_

"Let's cut to the chase," Pearl once again spoke after another silence. "You all have 24 hours before I cut off water, electricity, and shut down the web. Yes, that means no more respawn points. Say goodbye to your internet friends and group up with your real ones because anyone who's solo will be dead by the end of the week. 

"The city is closed off to everyone on the outside, so don't try to escape. Anyone seen approaching any of my mansions will be splatted on the spot. If you're under eighteen, then good luck, I guess, and if you're already writing an angry Squitter post then fuck you too."

"Get ready, because at sunset tomorrow, my world is realized. You still have access to all life essentials, it's just that you'll have to work a little harder to get them. If you're having doubts, don't worry, it'll be a blast. All the raids, and… Well, raiding stores and stuff will be fun. I'll keep the news channel live so I can tell you guys whenever I'm going to go somewhere.

"Hope y'all have fun! See you soon!"

The news channel cut to static.

Some people were in denial. Some thought it was an elaborate prank, a big ol' leg-pulling. The announcement was on every major and minor news site. There were theories speculating Marina's whereabouts and Pearl's motives. 

The next day at 7:00 p.m., Pearl's claims were proven true. Electricity, running water, internet access, phone service, and the law all went down.

Some people want to see the world burn, but our protagonists in the NSS? They just want to survive it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is partially inspired by Lisa: The Painful RPG. You can't really tell yet.
> 
> Unfortunately, this probably won't get updated any time soon, so keep your expectations low. Sorry.
> 
> Bonus:  
> I've come to make an announcement. Marina Ida is a bitch-ass motherfucker. She chose team fucking Order. She pulled her ugly fucking octo voice out and said that her chances of winning the Splatfest were this big and I said that's disgusting. So I'm making a callout post on my Squitter .com. Marina Ida, you have a small team. It's the size of my team except way smaller. And guess what? Here's what my perfect world looks like. *Pffghhssjgfsshh*  
> That's right baby. All freedom, no rules, no electricity, it just looks like two balls and a bong.  
> Marina pissed on my hopes and dreams so I'm going to piss on hers. That's right this is what you get!  
> My Super Chaos Piss!  
> But I'm not going to piss on the whole Earth. I'm going lower. I'm pissing on JUST INKOPOLIS!  
> How do you like that, Marina?! I just overthrew the government in Inkopolis, you IDIOT!!  
> You all have 24 hours before I cut off the water and electricity supply, now get out of my fucking sight before I piss on you too.


	2. Already, huh

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The first real look into the apocalypse, feat. Agent 3.

  
  
  


Three heard a faint rustling in the tent last night, but she was too tired to acknowledge it or even consider what may have been the source. 

When she woke up, The Cap'n and Eight were gone and a ransom note was in their place.

Three's superstitions had very well prepared her for this kind of event. It would be simple. It would be easy. In fact, it could be beneficial, but that depends on how much the hosts are inevitably faking their tough demeanors. Show up the leader and the followers will crumble. She picked up her Foil Flingza (which wasn't stolen for some reason; idiots) and started dragging herself where the location the little letter described.

The note only led her a measly 6 minutes away, and the location ended up being a small warehouse. Typical.

The large metal front door/gate thing was locked shut with ropes and a padlock. Who locks a door with ropes? Those are braindead easy to cut through. You can even burn them. Stupid.

Three smashed the lock with a few swings of her roller and tossed the loose ropes aside. The backside of a flingza roller is very practical as a simple club. 

The door had a handle on the bottom that let Three easily lift it up. 

Nothing was immediately invisible inside except for dust, empty boxes, and a smaller isolated room in the back. It probably used to be an office or break room of sorts and now was probably where Three's kind hosts were waiting. 

The room was protected by yet another padlocked door, which Three easily smashed as well. Only one swing this time. Three heard two hushed voices murmuring inside. 

Three calmly knocked on the door. The voices stopped. 

"So, guys, what's going on in there?" Three asked nonchalantly.

No reply.

"I think you've got a couple of my friends in there," she continued.

No reply.

"It would be nice of you if you let them go for me, please?" Three was sounding increasingly anxious.

Sounding.

Still no reply.

"Come onnn! Please, I really need them back…"

A young man finally spoke up. "Listen, girl, if you want them back, you're-"

Three kicked in the door and quickly found the speaker. She swung the backside of her roller at the side of the guy's head as hard as she could. He didn't have time to process the situation and took the full blow. He fell to the ground, unconscious and bleeding. He's probably going to live, Three decided.

Three turned to the source of the other voice, a small girl with a similar age and in dumb only-shades-of-red clothes cowering in the corner. Also in the room were boxes (not empty this time,) paper trash, a pair of cots, and, of course, Eight and the Cap'n, blindfolded, gagged, and bound to chairs. They looked like they were trying to look at Three.

"Hey," Three calmly said to the girl, causing her to shrink further into the corner. "If you give us all of your food and free these two, I'll leave without doing anything else and we'll call it good."

The girl frantically nodded and rushed to untie her two hostages as Three watched, expression blank. She noticed that the bleeding man was wearing very similar red clothes. If people kept treating the End like a game with silly little gangs and groups, then Three's trio would have no problem surviving. Hopefully Four's trio has made the same realization.

The girl finished untangling Eight and the Cap'n and looked at Three pleadingly.

"The food," Eight chimed in.

The girl apologized several times and dropped one of the boxes in front of Three. It was filled with packages of ramen and bags of chips; all of it was probably crushed to the point of being drinkable.

"What's in the other boxes?" Three asked.

"It's just our clothes, I-I swear. You can check if you want."

Three maintained eye contact for a few more seconds before she gestured to her partners to leave. Before she followed behind them, she turned back to the girl in red.

The girl nodded.

  
  


  
  


The trio was walking back to their tent in silence, Three awkwardly carrying the food box and her roller.

It was very silent, in fact.

Inkopolis didn't look like it was in ruins quite yet. Instead, it simply looked neglected. Some people still used their homes as homes, which was honestly probably smarter than camping in a tent on the outskirts of the city, but whatever. This is a new chapter, right? No point in clinging to the past, the pointless, whatever.

The Cap'n decided to break the silence. "Three."

"Hmm," Three mumbled.

"Why did you hit that man so hard?"

"To knock him out, I guess."

"Three, you hit him so hard, both the wall of that room and your roller are stained."

"What else was I supposed to do?"

"You could've just pinned him down. That girl looked harmless."

"What if she wasn't?"

"All three of us know you'd be perfectly capable of dealing with both of them if you had needed to. That's besides the point, which is that that couple was just trying to survive in the same hellscape that we're all going to have to try to survive in. They were probably hoping to do to you what you did to them."

"So self defense is worse morally than offense?"

"Three."

"They _k_ _idnapped_ you!-"

Cuttlefish raised his voice. "Agent 3."

Three _hated when_ he did that. But, alas, she gave up on her argument and resumed walking. In the silence.

More silence, wonderful. At least the first one didn't have Three's own thoughts to fill it.

  
  


Eight broke the second silence. "Three?"

"Yes?" Three replied.

"Can I carry the box?"

"Why? You just got taken hostage."

"Yeah, and _you_ saved us."

Three hesitated. "That doesn't mean anything."

"It means I want to repay you," Eight pushed. "Let me carry the box."

"It's not even that heavy-"

"Three." Three hates it when she does it too. Maybe slightly less. But she still loathes it.

Cuttlefish just watched.

"Yes?" asked Three through her beak.

"Box."

Wordlessly, Three handed the box to Eight.

"Thank you," said Eight.

"I didn't even do-"

"Just take her thanks, Three," said the Cap'n.

"Thank you, Eight," Three mumbled after a moment.

Eight placed a hand on Three's shoulder and Three tried not to tense up. 

They continued back to the tent in another silence, but this time, it was an awkward silence. 

No one should have to feel guilty for saving hostages. No one should have to save hostages.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yo I'm so sorry that this took so long to come out. To compensate, I'm releasing chapter 3 right after this. I hope this wasn't too long of a wait or too short of a chapter. Again, don't expect frequent updates in the future.


	3. Meanwhile

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> An intro to Callie's Marie's, and Four's side of things. Four isn't pleased with Pearl.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: after "Four believed in equality and fairness," things get a bit violent very briefly. Just a heads-up.

You wouldn't think that Four would have too many regrets. But, truth be told, she has a lot, although they're mostly minor, like walking in on someone in the bathroom. However, one huge mistake has been swirling in the back of her mind for a few days now.

Fighting for Team Chaos is one of the most guilt-inducing decisions she's ever made.

Sure, she probably didn't make a difference in who won; Pearl had a crushing 3-0. And even if she chose Order and order had won instead, she still would've helped to bring about the end of days. 

Four knows that she's absolutely not to blame, but she can't keep herself from feeling that the physical and emotional collapses all around her are somehow caused by her.

As we all are aware, any negative emotion eventually turns into anger. We like to have a target, and Four knows pinning herself isn't healthy (poor Three…). So, who else is to blame for the end of days than the Queen herself?

Four doesn't care if it was or wasn't Pearl's fault. She's ultimately the one who caused all of this. Four wanted to do something about it, and she knew she wasn't alone.

Both Callie and Marie had clearly expressed disappointment and annoyance toward Pearl since the day after her announcement, and rightfully so. Four couldn't imagine being a megacelebrity in the apocalypse. People can and will do whatever they want now, and if that means performing their sick fantasies on a couple of pop stars, then that's what that means.

Who knows how much stress and paranoia the Squid Sisters are dealing with right now. Four could ask, but it's too early for that.

And it's all because Pearl literally wanted to watch the world burn, whether she knew it or not.

So now Four had a plan. Well, nay, more like an idea. 

The day before the Armageddon, Pearl had mentioned that it would be impossible to get into any of her several mansions. It almost sounded like an invite. Who knows how many people she's already turned into stains because of it.

Four's idea was simple. She wanted to raid each and every mansion until she found the monster herself. It didn't matter how many mansions she had to go through. She was going to find Pearl and give her what she deserves.

Four believed in equality and fairness. Therefore, the amount of pieces she was going to dice Pearl into depended on how much Four's life deteriorated further into shit before she encountered her. She wouldn't be satisfied until she saw Pearl's innards clinging to her walls. Yes, that may be satisfactory.

"Four?"

Oh, back to reality now.

It was Callie. She was sitting to her right, and Marie was sitting to her left. They were sitting on the dirt, huddling around a small fire fueled by garbage. It had the physically painful smell of burning plastic to solidify the mood. Both the fire and the garbage inside of it hissed and crackled and popped.

"Yuh?" Four grumbled. The stars were out now. The sun has set while she was in her thoughts. It was cold out now. She was cold.

"You kinda spaced out," Callie said. "And you had this weird look on your face. It was… uhh, ominous."

"Huh, really?"

"Yeah, you looked like you wanted to see someone dead," Marie piped in. She looked up from staring at the tiny fire to join the conversation.

Funny how that works, isn't it?

"I'm just trying to deal with all of this still," is what Four settled on after a moment. "The End of the World is hard, and it's just started."

"Imagine how much harder it will be once people start getting hungry," Callie commented. Four and Marie both glared at her.

"Four, look," said Marie. "Do you have anything you want to share? You look like you're unhappy with something."

"No, I don't," Four said. She wasn't lying. She _d_ _idn't_ want to share. Not yet, at least. 

"You sure?" Making eye contact with Marie always felt unique. She had such fun eyes. Never seen anything like them (except for on Callie.)

"I'm sure," Four assured her. "Do _you_ have anything you want to talk about? You, Callie?"

"Not really," Callie sighed. Marie shook her head.

Cool. Time for Four to go back to her thoughts again.

This whole scene just instills nothing but hopelessness and raw sadness. Seeing people you look up to feel unsure of what to do is always a painful slap in the face from reality's wet rubber glove. 

Marie was the only one out of the three who'd remembered to pack clothes, so she shared what she'd managed to snag from her house with Callie and Four. They fit Callie fine, but they were a bit big on Four, but Four didn't mind. They were Marie's, after all. 

Everyone had previously agreed to ignore the problem of washing the clothes for the time being.

Seeing her idols wearing what would soon basically become torn rags wasn't a fun thought. Four had read books where the protagonist has to burn their clothes to keep a fire going. She hopes it doesn't come down to that. 

Well, actually it would be kind of fun to see Marie- no, nevermind. Four's better than that. There's plenty of garbage to burn, anyway. She could always use herself if they ran out of the non-sentient kind. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Again, don't expect frequent updates. If you've read this far, it means that this has somehow caught your interest. Thanks for that! The next chapter will be longer, I promise.


	4. Stuff for Snacks

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Three and Eight attend one of Pearl's daily announcements.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: if you don't like vomiting, stop reading after 'But, she wasn't in the mood to do anything about it.' I'll add similar warnings in the future when I need to.

Eight, Three, and Cap'n were hungry. Therefore, they sat staring into the box of noodles and chips that Three snagged yesterday with questionable morality. Eight spoke what she believed everyone was wondering:

"How are we gonna cook the noodles?"

"We can eat them raw," Three and Cap'n said simultaneously.

"Oh," Eight said, disappointed and relieved at once. Sure, we don't have to cook it which means we can eat it, but now we have to eat it.

The three of them agreed that one bag of chips and one block of ramen each would be a good enough breakfast. Three hid the rest of the food in the tent that the trio shared, which was located in an alley in a lesser-density part of Inkopolis not too far from the Square. It seemed like one of the safest places, but not one of the cleanest or brightest or nicest-smelling. Nothing at all like Pearl and Marina's mansions. Not even anything like Three's apartment, which has been compared to a dark alley before, along with a swamp and a dungeon. 

The alley was still debatably better than the Metro. She still had Three and the Cap'n, after all. Eight didn't even have to deal with the constant motion sickness swirling around in her exposed gut, which was a plus.

They had found out shortly into the second day that the lack of easy access to information wasn't easy to deal with, especially for Three and Eight herself, and especially because _it's the apocalypse and what in the world is going on??_

The only exception to this that Eight knows of is Pearl. She'll occasionally come onto the local news channel (which is where Off the Hook previously announced Turf War rotations, Splatfests, etc.) and tell everyone something, usually trivial. On the first day, she repeated that she was excited for her new world and explained how she got the TVs on the square to work despite the lack of electricity, and on the second day, she talked about how the lack of Internet connection was surprisingly hard, but that she could deal with it.

Yesterday, however, she named off a few stores which she said hadn't been ransacked yet, which Eight guesses _is useful_ , but the group made no move to take advantage of it.

More importantly, she also mentioned that she'd be telling the people something important tomorrow. Based on experience, what Pearl considers to be important can be odd, but it's worth hearing. The group was going to go and hear her regardless; she's one of the only sources of entertainment now.

  
  
  
  


Inkopolis Square was crowded. It was absolutely packed. Before, people stood on tables to get a better view of the main screen, but now they're all either missing or broken. It was probably smart to let Cap'n stay at the tent.

Despite the amount of people here and the amount of laws, there wasn't a single fight or confrontation that Eight saw, even when she looked for one. Guess that people will stop fighting for long enough to hear Pearl speak.

But crowded is still crowded, and Eight didn't like crowded, and she knew that Three didn't either. Three's hand drifted towards Eight's and Eight took it. Neither of them acknowledged it.

Eight misses Pearl. And Marina, for that matter. Who else could she pin as her parents but them? They housed her, fed her, clothed her, and taught her, and eventually they split up that job with Three. Marina tried her best to nourish her, while Pearl did everything she could to protect her. That included giving her a lot of money, plenty of which Eight ended up giving to Three, which she didn't accept at first, but Eight made her because she could only afford to live and do nothing else.

If Pearl loved her enough to try and protect her from everything (and Eight means _everything_ ), then why did she leave her out in the middle of the apocalypse? Why did she only save herself? Eight didn't even know if she took in Marina. But why?

"Hey," Three said, "look over there." She gestured to Eight's right. 

It was hard to make out through all the people, but she could see a foldable table with someone sitting behind it. It looked like these things called lemonade stands that Three had told her about, where 'kids sell sour yellow water because they don't think they have a big enough allowance. You wouldn't know, your weekly allowance is more than I make in a month.'

The two made their way to the table through the crowd. There was a young-looking Inkling girl sitting behind the table, and on one side of the table was random junk and on the other was random food items, some of which actually looked really good. There were granola bars, canned soup, bread, sandwiches, store-bought cookies, uncrushed chips… it all looked delightful.

"Hello!" the girl called out to Eight and Three. 

"Uh, hey," Eight said, stepping closer, Three following her. "What're you doing out here?"

"Trading," she said. Her expression suggested that she wouldn't elaborate unless prompted.

She was wearing a standard T-shirt and jeans, along with a pair of glasses that Eight couldn't tell if they were meant to decorative or practical. She had longish green tentacles in a shade not too far off from Three's tied up behind her neck to keep them out of the way. Eight assumed she didn't know how to make a bun. She looked just over 14, maybe 15. Behind her were two large shopping bags and an e-liter with a good length of the barrel cut off. It looked sharp, not to mention that it was an e-liter, which meant that it packed a punch. Oddly, it also had blue ink instead of green. Did the shortened barrel give it a spread effect? Or does it just make the thing lighter?

"What are you trading?" Eight asked.

"Stuff for snacks. I'm taking stuff and giving people snacks."

"What's your name?" Three asked.

"Samantha, yours?"

"Ivy," Three said. "She's Eight."

Samantha nodded. "Numbers, huh," she said almost to herself. Almost. "Names keep getting weirder and weirder…"

"We were born _after_ y- You know, whatever. What kind of stuff to you accept? I'm starving."

"Anything, really. It could be something from your pockets, something from the ground, I don't care. The only things I don't take are wrappers and rocks. One snack per thing."

Eight turned to Three. "Are you sure that that food hasn't, like, expired? Maybe she's giving it away because she can't eat it."

"I don't care, it'll be worth it. The chips we've got are ass, and you know it. I need *flavor.*" Three started digging through her sweater pockets for stuff.

"Three, come on. I don't want you to get sick."

"Oh, she's a number too?" Samantha chuckled. Eight shot her a look.

"I won't be sick, Eight. I've eaten much worse things."

"If you get sick, I'm laughing at you," Eight warned.

"Fair enough." Three took two cheap pens from her pocket. "Will this cover both of us?" she asked Samantha.

"Ooh, that's cutting it tight, but you two are a good time. I'll let it slide." She smiled.

"Sweet," said Three. "I'll take that sandwich."

"You sure? It's tuna."

"I don't care, it's the biggest."

"Suit yourself," Samantha said as she handed Three the sandwich. "And you, uh, Eight?"

"Uh, those chips, please," Eight said, pointing.

"Here you are," said Samantha.

"How often will you be here?" Three asked. Her sandwich was already half gone. "This is a good service. 10 outta 10."

"Oh, this is probably the last time," she said nonchalantly. "What do you think this rifle is for?"

Eight's and Three's smiles vanished. That wasn't _morbid or_ _gruesome_ or anything like that.

"Oh, uhh… Samantha, surely there's a better way than that, right?"

"I probably could survive if I wanted to, but my parents are locked out of the city, I don't have any friends, and the internet is inaccessible. Why deal with this hell when I don't have any reason to?" Samantha's own smile was faltering.

"Well, we could be your friends," Eight suggested. "We can take you with us. I can tell you from personal experience that Three here is very cool." Three attempted to smile.

"You aren't the only people who've tried that," said Samantha. 

"At least that means that other people care about you," Eight said. She couldn't tell you why exactly she was so concerned with the kid, but she just felt terrible. 

"Pearl's apocalypse probably won't last forever," Eight reasoned.

"I know. I don't care, it's not worth it."

"But your parents-"

_"I don't care_." Samantha's smile was now a scowl. She looked on the verge of tears.

"Let's just go," Three said. "She's made up her mind."

After hesitation, Eight reluctantly let Three lead her back away from Samantha's table. "Thank you for trying," she called as the two left.

Eight didn't want to talk and she refused to eat her chips.

After a few more elongated minutes, the news channel finally switched from static to Pearl fidgeting with a camera, like usual. The (again, surprisingly peaceful) chatter from all around the Square cut off immediately,

"Hello, everyone," she announced as she finished up with the camera. She was standing in what appeared to be her room, with Off the Hook posters and whatnot hanging on the wall. "If you were here yesterday, you should remember that I said that I would have an important announcement to make today.

"That announcement was that I will be making these broadcasts less often now.

"That's it for today. The next one will be in four days. Goodbye!" The channel went back to static.

The chatter fired up again, considerably less peaceful now. 

Eight heard the distorted bang of an e-liter firing behind her. She and Three decided to leave.

  
  
  


On the walk back to the tent in the alley, Eight glanced at the warehouse she was taken to the day before. It was on the route between the tent and the Square.

It looked inconspicuous from the outside, not to mention the inside. The building was wedged between two larger buildings probably full of offices. 

Eight wouldn’t have looked for so long if it weren’t for the fact that a short line of suspicious people were walking inside, all wearing some assortment of red. Eight very much didn’t like that.

But, she wasn’t in the mood to do anything about it.

  
  
  
  
  
  


Eight woke up. Based on the low light, it was probably still very early in the morning.

Eight was awoken by a disquieting gurgling sound coming from outside the tent. She checked her right; Three's sleeping bag was empty. She knew what was happening.

Eight scrambled out of her sleeping bag and dashed outside to see Three, just a few feet from the tent, on her hands and knees, violently and spastically vomiting.

As soon as Three caught a break, she noticed Eight and tried to crack a joke, which only led into a coughing fit with more bile escaping Three.

Eight felt _awful_. For Three. All she could think to do was to gently stroke Three's back as she continued to hurl her guts out. 

Eight was right about the sandwich, but she wished she wasn't.

After a few minutes, Three seemed to be done, but as soon as she weakly tried to move, another wave came on, just as bad as the first. Three's hands all the way up to her wrists were coated in bile. There was a scarily large puddle just underneath Three's head, large enough to make a sickening splashy sound. Eight struggled not to get sick herself.

Eventually, Three actually stopped for a solid minute, so Eight used the opportunity to drape both of their sleeping bags over Three. It was freezing, and both Three and Eight were wearing only their undergarments. However, if Three was still wearing her sweater, it would definitely be ruined based on the condition of Three's wrists and hands.

Eight wanted to do something, but there was nothing else to do. There was no medicine, no bucket, no blankets, no warm washcloth for Three's forehead, nothing. It was miserable. They had no choice but to ride it out.

They did ride it out, all the way until dawn.

Eight never laughed at her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well shit, this was a day late huh? The next chapter will probably be a week or so, stay tuned for Four's side of the story.


	5. MakoMart

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Four, Callie, and Marie explore a mega-sized MakoMart.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> IMPORTANT WARNING!!!
> 
> I changed the rating to mature on THIS chapter for a REASON. If you are easily triggered or made very uncomfortable by certain things, read the rest of these notes. If you want to avoid spoilers, go ahead and skip them.  
> .  
> .  
> .  
> .  
> .  
> .  
> .  
> This chapter contains a large scene hinting at the sexual assult of a minor starting after 'Callie tested the knob' and ending at 'The girl was so ashamed of herself that she never made eye contact with Marie.'  
> Continue at your own risk.

Finally, the Sun had sunk, and it was time to follow through with _the Plan™_.

Marie still hadn't told them what the plan was, but Four had a feeling it would be worthwhile. None of the three were having any luck falling asleep, anyways.

Four, Callie, and Marie casually made their way down a sidewalk in eastern Inkopolis in the dark when any respectable person should be asleep. But that didn't matter, because Marie had a plan. Four wondered what it was.

Four had no idea where they were going, or if Marie even had a destination in mind. She was willing to bet Callie didn't either.

"Hey, where are we going?" Callie asked Marie. Yep.

"Shut up, you'll wake up the Sun."

"Now's not the time for this," Callie grumbled.

"Tell us what we're doing or else we naturally don't have any incentive to do it," Four added.

"Your incentive is that I told you."

Well shit. Four's been beat.

"Tell us what we're doing or else we have the right to call you a bastard," threatened Callie.

"Always did, never will," Marie said as if she was saying something normal. She never broke her gaze from the road ahead of her, using her charger as a walking stick even though she absolutely did not need one.

Callie groaned; Four did the same, but internally. "I hate when she does this," she loudly whispered to Four, making it clearly audible for Marie. She didn't react. Callie and Four gave up for the time being.

  
  


After a few minutes of silently and irritatedly walking, Marie abruptly stopped. "Shut up," she whispered, despite nothing having been said. "We're here." She gestured behind her with her thumb.

On the other side of the street was a MakoMart, but the enormous kind that was like the size of several apartment complexes. It had a huge parking lot and a huge logo to go with it. Four realized exactly what was about to happen, the only good thing about the apocalypse: a raid. 

Well, in this case it’s just a looting, but still.

Callie supposedly realized the same thing, but looked skeptical, but not skeptical enough to object.

"Tonight," Marie declared, "We feast."

"You're insane," Callie protested, but again made no move to stop her.

"I, for one, am completely on board with this," Four said. 

"We know," the Squid Sisters said in sync.

Four ignored this and continued. "We could find food, or clothes… maybe we could even live in here. We'll need the extra protection for when things start getting competitive."

"You've got a good point on that last bit," Marie said, walking toward the front entrance.

"Oh, you're back to being rational again!"

"The mitochondria is the powerhouse of the cell."

Four had to resist the urge to slam her palm into her face hard enough to flatten the structures of her nose.

Marie tried opening the front double-doors, but they were locked, unsurprisingly.

"Always worth a shot," Callie mused.

"Fool," Marie countered. "We aren't anywhere near done here." 

She then proceeded to take a step back, stretch her shoulders, wind up her arm, and throw a heavy sucker punch right above the left door's handle.

There was a scarily loud metallic boom (not only because of the possibility of attracting attention, but also because of how hard Marie must've punched that door) that was shortly followed by a gasp from Callie and a short stream of colorful profanity from Marie.

"I was joking earlier when I called you insane, but now I'm really considering it," said Callie once the echoing of the bang stopped. "I don't want you to hurt yourself."

"Don't worry, I dumped that habit a long time ago," said Marie nonchalantly as she examined her hand.

"Don't joke about things like that," Four said. "It's not anything that we want to hear right now."

Marie apparently accepted this argument as she actually didn't fight back. Rather, she started to remove her T-shirt wait hold on a sec-

"Marie, Four's right here," Callie reminded her.

Four was very, very aware of this fact.

Marie wrapped the T-shirt around her hand. "I'm bleeding," she explained. She was now the only one out of the three _not_ wearing a T-shirt. "That's more of an issue than whatever Four is thinking about right now."

Four was fine with that assumption. She couldn't decide if she was relieved or disappointed by the fact that Marie had remembered to pack undergarments.

Marie finished with the shirt, turned back to the door, and released a full-force kick above the handle. And another. "You want to strike above the handle because that's closest to where the lock is," she explained between blows. 

"I know," said Four. "Three told me."

Callie had two fingers to her forehead, probably trying to figure out what to do and/or if there was anything she could do about anything happening right now.

Finally, after about the fifth kick, they heard something snap from just inside the door, and the sixth sent it flying open. Four wanted to cheer, but she was ticked off with Marie so she didn't.

"Yeehaw," proclaimed Marie, hands on her hips, facing the now-open doorway. "Let's get some shit!"

  
  
  
  


It was dark inside the massive store. Like, too dark to see. Luckily, Four had anticipated this and prepared accordingly.

"Why do you have your phone," Marie said. It was structured like a question but sounded like a statement.

"It has a flashlight," Four explained. "Being able to see is a good thing, right?"

"Well, yes," said Marie. "I didn't even know that you had saved your phone in the first place."

"One, it's one of my most valuable possessions, and two, it could be a useful tool. Like a flashlight, a camera, a notebook, a blunt projectile, etcetera."

"That's fair" is all that Marie had to say about that.

"Let's circle the perimeter of the store counterclockwise and make our way towards the middle," Callie suggested. Everyone agreed.

As the trio passed the other set of front doors, they… remained closed. Good. Four was afraid that Marie could've mauled the other one for no reason.

Speaking of Marie, she was still _very shirtless_ , but more importantly, she wasn't lying when she said she was bleeding because her once-white T-shirt was now starting to look very lime. 

As the three girls circled around the aisles, they noticed something: The store seemed to be untouched since the start of the apocalypse, and that was very, very good.

“Let’s not grab anything until we know what our options are,” Callie suggested. Marie nodded and Four did the same, albeit reluctantly. There was so much _stuff_ to snag here. Clothes, food, water, soap, backpacks, paper, medical supplies, plywood, hammers and nails, large packages of toilet paper (which could serve as a bed alongside their intended purpose,) batteries (which could be used for flashlights, radios, and possibly Four’s phone,) food… 

Choosing this store to raid almost felt like cheating, but Four didn’t mind cheating to stay alive. Good choice, Marie.

“This was a good choice,” said Marie.

The trio was passing by the back of the store when Four found exactly what she’d been hoping to find: A back room. Who could possibly know what treasures were hidden away inside? 

Four decided to wait until the rest of the store was explored before she ventured into the back room.

  
  
  


Finally, they had searched the whole store. Oddly enough, there were a few things seemingly missing from the shelves, but Four had found everything on her little list along with a little extra. She'd been keeping a pen as a weapon until then because she'd forgotten to bring any of her own, but she got to upgrade to a proper hunting knife, with a cover and everything. This was _too good_.

Two minutes later Four also find a lightweight metal pipe somewhere around two feet long. She slipped it into the backpack she snagged to keep as a backup weapon.

Four also ran into several packs of cigarettes. She picked one up to examine it, but before she could even consider doing anything with them, Callie slapped them out of her hand, which, quite frankly, Four was thankful for. She _could theoretically_ keep them to trade with, but it wasn't worth the risk. Now was not the time to get sucked into substance abuse.

Four stood before the Back Door. The Squisters were stuffing their backpacks full of who knew what, so therefore this was the perfect time to take anything in this room for herself. She reached for the knob and turned both ways, but it was locked. Of course it was. Four stood back to think about her options. How could she open this without Callie or Marie notic-

Four heard the door click unlocked from the other side.

Before she had time to react, the door swung open, one set of hands covered her mouth, two dragged her inside, and a fourth pair shut the door behind her.

  
  
  
  


"Hey Callie, I found this cool board game," Marie shouted from across the store.

"Keep it if there's room," Callie shouted back. "We should get suitcases to go with our backpacks." Callie and Marie had both found industrial flashlights and batteries to go with them, which meant that the trio got to split up and search for what they wanted individually.

Callie sifted through the candy aisle, packing anything that wouldn't kill her through sheer sugar intake. Marie seemed to get the same idea, as she shortly joined Callie in her search. 

"I still can't believe Four eats Starbursts without unwrapping them," Callie said as she shoved several packages of the stuff into her bag.

Marie chuckled. "She's not doing anything wrong; the wrappers are perfectly edible."

"Maybe it's not wrong for her health, but it definitely raises some morality questions."

"It's not as bad as Three eating potato chips with relish," Marie shot back.

"Again, questionable morally, but still healthy." Callie grinned.

"She also eats string cheese with ketchup, lemonade powder by itself, and she refuses to eat ice cream. Because of the taste."

Callie laughed. "Fine, you win, Three's eating habits are worse." 

Their smiles faded, though, and the only sound for a moment was the crinkling of candy packages.

"How's your hand?" Callie asked.

"Not terrible," Marie answered, "but not fine or dandy either. This shirt is probably going to stick to my knuckles."

“Then get rid of it before it does just that.”

Marie removed the shirt from her hand and stuffed it into her bag. She seemed to have stopped bleeding.

More almost-silence.

"Y'know, I haven't heard Four in a while," mentioned Callie.

"She's probably looting the back room without us," Marie said. "Let's change that."

The two made their way to the back of the store where they previously saw a door labeled with 'Employees Only.' Callie tested the knob. "Huh, it's open," she said. 

She glanced inside and saw four men standing around Four, who was whimpering and bound to a chair with several thin cuts across her torso. One man was standing directly over Four, holding her shredded shirt and a precision knife.

  
  
  
  


Four was struggling to grasp what was happening.

Her arms were zip-tied to a plastic lawn chair, yes, and she was restricted from crying for help because of the two hands clamped over her mouth. Unfortunately, she already tried biting; it didn't work.

However, she could see, and she didn't like what she was seeing all two much. She was in a dimly lit lounge room, and there were at least four adult guys in it with her; one preventing her from speaking, two holding her waist and legs down, and one inspecting her _entire_ body in a _very_ uncomfortable fashion, not to mention while holding a boxcutter.

Four wasn't making any effort to resist yet, which was smart because a surprise attack was always good. But, as soon as this guy so much as made an attempt to _touch_ her, she was going to slam her own head into his hard enough to give herself a concussion. Like any respectable person, Four _refused to_ be treated that way. 

She tried to look behind her, but she didn't get to see much before her head was jerked back to where it was before. However, what she did see was a couch with another girl tied down to it, nude. The couch was filthy. 

Four's hatred for these vile excuses for people tripled. As soon as she got out of there, she was going to get this poor girl out of here and tie the men to the parking signs outside and leave them to rot.

The guy inspecting her came face to face with Four and made eye contact. He looked disgusting. It wasn't that he was ugly _which he was_ , it was the look on his face. It showed nothing but malice and lust and it was awful.

Four tried to reach in and bring out her inner Three and gave him the most intimidating stare she could, never blinking.

Not five seconds in did the guy backhand her across the side of her head and move on to staring at Four's shirt instead.

Four hung her head and began to tear up as she realized the reality of what was going to happen to her; any Three-like steely resolve she had just before fizzled out of existence, probably never to be seen again.

  
  
  
  


Callie opened the door and she and Marie simply stood there in shock for a moment

Marie removed her backpack, hurled it at the man with the knife, formed a splat bomb, and threw it to the now-on-the-ground creep. He couldn't get up in time to move away and was splatted, never to respawn. 

"Get out," Marie seethed. "Get out of our sight before I turn the rest of you sick fucks into stains too."

No one moved.

"Get OUT! GET OUT, _NOW!_ " Marie screeched. " _GET OUUTT!!"_

The remaining three quickly scurried out of the room, and both Callie and Marie had to resist physically attacking them as they left.

There was a brief moment accompanied only by heavy breathing and Four's slowing sobs before Callie rushed to untie Four and Marie started frantically digging through her backpack. Marie ripped out a pack of bandages and tossed it to Callie before going to help untie the other girl.

"I… don't even know what to say," said Callie, working on the ties on Four's arms. "Are- are you okay?"

Four sniffled and nodded. The cuts stung, but things could've been much worse. 

"Just know that you didn't deserve any of this," Callie said, now working on her legs. Four nodded again.

Callie finally finished the last tie fastening Four to the chair and Four promptly fell onto all fours in front of it. Callie had Four roll onto her back and started bandaging all the serious cuts while Four tried to convince herself mentally that it was over.

  
  
  


Marie worked on cutting the ropes holding the unknown girl to the couch. She was actually an Octoling. She had dark skin and a somewhat small frame, being both short and thin. Her body was covered in cuts similarly to Four's torso, but most of hers had turned into yellow scabs that matched her ink color.

"I'm sorry" was all Marie could think to say. "How long have you been here for?"

"Two days," the girl croaked. Based on her voice alone, Marie determined that she hadn't eaten during that time. Based on the… _condition_ of a certain spot on the end of the couch, she hadn't been able to move, either.

Once Marie removed all of the ropes, she saw that the girl's skin was nearly raw where they held her down. She was so weak that Marie had to help her sit up.

Marie dashed over to her backpack, removed some newly-salvaged clothes and a few water bottles, and dashed back to the girl. Marie was trying to figure out how to offer to help her put them on, but she stood, took them, and did it herself. Every movement she made looked like it might be the last before she collapsed, but she managed to shrug on all the loose athletic clothes Marie gave her. Marie opened a water bottle and handed it to her, and she downed it in less than ten seconds. She started a coughing fit afterwards, but she was able to calm herself down before it escalated. 

Color was returning to the girl's body that Marie hadn't even realized should've been there to begin with. Her skin became warm and her tentacles a striking, vibrant yellow.

"I'm assuming you're still thirsty?" 

She nodded, and Marie gave her another bottle, which she handled with an obvious strength boost over the last one. 

Finally, Marie gave her a small package of candy to hold her over. "I'll go get you some real food," she shouted over her shoulder as she dashed back into the store.

The girl was so ashamed of herself that she never once made eye contact with Marie.

  
  
  
  
  


Four Callie, and Marie sat in a triangle around one of those fancy battery-powered nightlights that projected patterns of stars and the moon and stuff into the ceiling. Callie found it while Marie was searching for food with actual nutritious value, and Four agreed that it was a necessary addition to their collection of things.

Marie had also found one of the maniacs trying to hide out in the store. She promptly shot him.

The light wasn't quite as glamorous as a fire, but at least it smelled okay.

Four had told Callie and Marie about the toilet paper bed idea, but it turned out that the store actually had full blown mattresses, too, which Four didn't complain about. The three of them hauled the biggest one they could find (Four's pretty sure it's king sized) into a clearing near one corner of the store, between the entrances and the checkout lanes. 

The three had shared a long, drawn-out hug earlier. They all appreciated it.

Four's phone read 5:44 a.m., but nobody cared. They were exhausted and they were going to sleep and they were going to sleep in.

After the girl had regained enough strength to walk and take care of herself a few hours back, Marie suggested that everyone let her have some alone time and everyone agreed. She wandered around the store by herself, which is probably what she came here to do in the first place two days ago.

Now she was wearing an oversized hoodie to better hide herself. Four noticed her just standing there, a few yards away from the massive mattress. It was hard to tell because of the faint light, but she looked like she wanted to ask something but didn't know how.

Four sat up and gestured for her to join them on the mattress.

She pointed at herself, as if asking "Me?"

Four nodded.

She sheepishly made her way to the mattress and Four scooted over to make room.

At first, Four didn't think she was going to want to have to deal with this girl at all, that she would be a hassle, that she would take some of the attention off of Four.

And she would.

But Four realized that this person, despite the ugly circumstances in which they'd met (they haven't even talked yet) and despite the problems she'd probably produce, this person was a gift. This person was a potential friend, and in a world where everyone is an enemy waiting to be found, that's a hell of a good thing to have.

The girl nervously plopped down on the bed next to Four, awkwardly laying on her side but propping herself up at the same time. Four wrangled one of three large blankets away from Marie and gave it to the other girl.

Of course, Four loved Callie and Marie with every fiber of her being. She loved them more than her own parents, but that's the thing. They're like parents, not really friends, and the other agents are like sisters.

This girl is Four's opportunity to have a _normal friend_ , and Four was thankful to have her.

Pearl, on the other hand. After what happened today, Pearl had no hope for survival. That shit doesn't just get forgotten. That changes people. And it wouldn't have happened (or even almost happened) to Four if Pearl hadn't decided to fuck with the whole city. For that, Four knew she was dead. 

Four felt a tap on her shoulder. It was the girl.

"Thank you," she whispered, and Four saw her smile for the first time.

All Four heard as she finally drifted to sleep was the steady breathing of those around her. There was silence, but for once, it was a soothing silence.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh god. 
> 
> I checked with a friend to make sure that this was morally okay to write, and after reading it she said it was so we're probably good, but I'm still worried that this was too much. I hope it wasn't.
> 
> The next chapter will be more light-hearted, I promise.


	6. Hunting Day

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Eight searches for resources.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is much more tame than the last one, I promise.
> 
> Also, new upload schedule. I couldn't keep up with every Sunday, so now it's every other Saturday. Sorry

  
  
  


Three was still sick. 

Well, that's to be expected. Eight knows that food poisoning doesn't just pass over, but that’s not the point.

The point is that Eight wants to stay at the Tent and comfort her, but everyone spending a whole day there doesn't sound too productive.

Eight asked Three and the Cap'n, who were sitting against the alley wall: “Can I go out and explore? By myself?”

“That’s a terrible idea,” the Cap’n said. “It is,” Three added weakly.

Welp.

“Give me one good reason why I can’t search for supplies and I’ll stay.” Eight was determined to go out; not to prove herself, she had already done that very well. She just wanted to help.

“You could get attacked,” Three rasped. “Robbed, jumped, mugged, ambushed, kidnapp-” She was interrupted by what looked like a sudden searing pain in her head, as she winced, shut her eyes tightly, and pinched her forehead.

“It’s dangerous,” the Cap’n finished for her, monotone.

Eight’s hands flew to her hips in defiance. “Dangerous? You two of all people should know that I can handle a little _danger._ I said a _good reason_."

The Cap'n sighed. "We can't make you do anything. Go if you really want to."

Eight was satisfied with his response, but Three just gave her a condescending, disappointed glare.

"Three, I'm only going out there to get help. You know I can handle mys-"

"Just go," Three rasped.

And so Eight did, even though that kinda hurt her feelings and made her feel guilty but it's just a little bit haha no biggie y'know?

She knew she was doing the right thing, anyway. She stuffed her pockets with some crushed chips and made her way out.

  
  
  
  


It'd been a couple hours now and Eight hadn't found much of anything. She did find a plastic grocery bag that she could put anything she did eventually find into, however.

It was sometime in the mid-afternoon based on the sun, which Three had taught her. The weather was actually really nice because it was Winter, so the afternoon heat and the Winter cold cancelled each other out.

The city still _looked_ like it was in decent condition. The sky was blue, the environment was vibrant and colorful, as usual… The only differences were the occasional broken window/door and the excess trash on the ground. And the lack of people. It was kind of scary to consider how many were just hiding and how many were actually already dead.

She'd seen a few people, though, but none of them interacted, which was fine by Eight.

Well, actually, one girl did; she shouted at Eight, making fun of what she was wearing. Eight ignored it and that odd mean girl moved on too.

Eight was, in fact, wearing Three's Hero Gear because of the overpowered, literally illegal benefits it gave her. Multiple subweapons, huge ink capacity (it was considerable even without the tank), extra durability, the ability to dodge-roll without Dualies, and, well… it was Three's. That was the main reason actually.

The Suit's only drawbacks were its... noticeability, being neon yellow and electric blue and all that, and the smell. If the smell was anyone other than Three's, it would be gross, but it was Three's so it was fine. 

...Actually it was still kind of gross.

While, no, she _didn't_ ask Three if she could use it, Eight was sure that she wouldn't mind. It was definitely the safest thing to do. The only thing that Eight didn't currently have that was extraordinary was her weapon, which was a simple Tentatek Splattershot. Three's Hero Shot was compatible with any special weapon, but it was still at their apartment, and Four's Hero Shot was all that plus a ridiculous fire rate, but Eight didn't know where that monster of a gun was at all.

Oh, wait, what's this? Eight found a… an ink tank, lying in the sidewalk’s gutter. An ink tank with a missing filter and a massive crack in it.

No, crack wasn't the right word. It had a _hole_ in it. It was unusable.

Eight bagged it anyway.

Eight had nothing against worthless knickknacks, but she was out here looking for useful things, namely food and water, and she hadn't found either of those which was annoying and mildly worrying. Maybe she should start searching the insides of buildings instead of scanning the outsides? Duh. That sounded like a good plan.

  
  
  
  


After another hour or so of briefly searching small stores and restaurants for anything edible with no success, Eight found something that halted her, made her stop in her tracks.

It was Three's favorite bakery. That, of course, meant that it was also Eight's favorite.

It was small, but cozy. Being the first public place that she visited on the surface, Eight had a… _variety_ of feelings for it. Obviously, it was a warm welcome to her new life, but it was also a hefty reminder of the semi-panic attack she had inside it, and the Metro in the first place.

Eight decided to explore it in its entirety.

She pushed open the double doors, the little bell attached chiming as she did. She immediately noticed the complete lack of any food in the display; normally there would be donuts and cookies and cupcakes and muffins (which are just cupcakes without the frosting; what a terrible concept) and other things with weirder, dumber names, but only crumbs remained.

The bakery also had a few tables, a couple of aisles for packaged baked goods and candy, and a separate counter for buying those other things separately. She and Three only ever used the tables and the main goods section.

Eight assumed that Three knew the cashier here well, because he was one of the only people Eight had seen her talk to comfortably. She just went up, ordered, paid, and that was it. She never stuttered, and sometimes they even had a short conversation. 

The shelves were almost completely empty as well, but there were still a few small things like cheap cookies and granola bars. Eight stashed everything remaining; there ended up being 9 individual items. It was now worth going here and worth the trip as a whole.

As Eight made her way to look through the back room, she heard a once-common but now _very unsettling_ sound in the distance.

Maybe a few hundred feet away, she heard the unmistakable engine roar of some kind of truck. It gradually became louder before it started to die down again, and after it disappeared, Eight realized just how quiet it was here.

After standing in place for a solid twenty seconds out of fear, Eight opened the back room door and started searching.

Unfortunately, it didn't look like much was there. Just shelves of boxes, a chair, and… no, that was it. This room wasn't helpful, for food at least. Maybe something else will be in the boxes?

Eight was mentally preparing herself for disappointment when she heard it again. The engine, this time coming from the left of where it came from before. It got louder and lasted longer; it was getting closer, and Eight wasn't a fan of that. At all.

After another minute, it fully disappeared again, but returned in only a few seconds this time, getting even louder. It didn't sound like it was moving at a mildly slow pace; they must be searching for something, someone.

Eight considered hiding in the back room, but then she remembered how powerful Three's suit made her. She could take on a truck effortlessly. Probably. She dropped the bag in the room to keep it from getting in the way.

This time, the engine started getting louder again before it faded completely. Definitely getting closer.

Eight stepped back into the main area of the bakery, right near the entrance. It had two large windows surrounding the double glass doors, so if the truck arrived, the driver should be able to see her.

Two more minutes of tense waiting passed before Eight finally saw the truck. It was actually a car. Why was it so loud?

It had at least 3 men inside; a driver, a passenger, and a guy standing through the sunroof, holding a Squiffer and a megaphone. They looked like they were on a patrol of some kind.

As they were passing by the bakery, the sunroof sniper barked something unintelligible at the driver and the relatively-new-looking car came to a stop.

The sniper aimed at Eight through the left window and fired, but the Squiffer didn’t have enough range to even touch the building. The sniper yelled at the driver again, who turned left, the car now closer to and facing the bakery.

The Squiffer fired again, but its blast of greyish ink was predictably stopped by the window, to Eight’s annoyance. They’re defiling Three’s favorite bakery, and that was... unacceptable. 

He fired at the same spot in the window a few more times, probably trying to shatter it, but it didn’t even crack. Eight moved to the right window and flipped off the sniper, thinking of Three, her defiant (maybe just flat-out rude) energy currently filling her body.

The sniper slammed the Squiffer against the roof of the car and shouted at the driver so loudly that she could actually hear it: “Drive through the entrance! Go!”

Shit.

Wanting to protect the sacred establishment, Eight dashed outside the doors, frantically waving her arms in an attempt to stop the car before it crashed into the precious bakery. It worked.

The driver stopped; the sniper raised his megaphone and shouted a drawn-out, monotone "Fuck you." 

"Shut up, Terrence," the guy in the passenger seat said as if he were talking to a child throwing a tantrum. Three would've laughed if she were there.

"We're here to rob you," the driver clarified.

"I don't have anything on me except for the clothes on my back and this dinky Tentatek." Good thing she left the bag inside, huh?

"Oh, then you can keep those. We're not like that."

"Not like what?" Eight asked.

"We're not going to make you strip," Terrence deadpanned through the megaphone.

Oh, _right_.

The passenger seat man punched Terrence in the shin.

"Just leave the bakery alone. It's my… my girlfriend's favorite." It felt very oddly satisfying to say that.

Terrence looked like he was going to say more, but the passenger man punched him again before he could get anything out.

"If you can't steal my clothes, why don't you just take my weapon?" Eight asked, genuinely curious.

"We have plenty," the driver explained. "We brought all of our weapons with us for the apocalypse, unlike most who only took one. Or none.

"Also, I might as well help you out while I'm here," he said. Terrence tried to object, but the passenger man punched him. Again.

"There's already quite a few gangs and alliances out here, grouping up to survive easier," he explained. "A few are bigger and more dangerous than the rest, though."

Eight nodded. "And who are they?"

"First there's the Cult. Now that the law isn't in effect, they can do whatever the hell they want, and I'd try my best to stay away. They're freaky. I've heard they have syringes and brandings and some other stuff."

"There's a cult?" Eight asked instead of 'What's a cult?' because that would probably make her look stupid.

"Yea, the Cult of Toni Kensa. Y'know."

Eight didn't know, but she pretended that something clicked and agreed.

"Then there's these creeps hiding out in a MakoMart on the other side of town. They're arguably worse than the Cult in my eyes. I haven't even seen them do anything and I know they're awful. Here's to hoping that they die."

Eight nodded slowly, unsure of what was happening.

"Last, there's this huge group I don't know the name of. The individual members seem pretty incompetent, but the sheer number of members they already have is terrifying. What is it, the first week of this nightmare, and they already have like, at least a hundred grunts?

"All the members wear red, and I've heard that a few of them have found lead-based guns. The kind that doesn't use ink or need a tank."

Eight nodded, surprised. "Are you sure those are real? I've only seen them in movies." Three's humorously bad action movies, to be precise.

"They're just as real as Terrence's aim isn't. As in they are real. Did you not hear them firing yesterday?”

Eight shook her head.

“Well, they were really loud. Like an E-Liter but louder by like four times.”

“Okay.” Eight wasn’t sure how helpful this information actually was anymore.

“One last thing,” the driver said, his voice flat. “If we find you again, we _will_ rob you, even if it means stealing your clothes. Got it?”

“You guys can try, but I think I could handle it,” Eight said honestly. “I could probably kill you right now if I felt threatened.”

“Me too,” said Terrence, banging the Squiffer against the car. Eight lowered her Splattershot.

“Sheesh, we just spared you and that’s how you respond?” the driver muttered. “Why’d I even bother helping you?”

“Wait, wait, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it like that. I just, uhh… sorry,” said Eight feebly.

The driver narrowed his eyes but didn’t counter Eight. “Nice seeing you,” he said before driving off.

“You too!” Eight shouted. “Hopefully we never see each other again because I don’t want any of us to die!”

“You’re a bitch!” Terrence shouted through the megaphone; based on how he collapsed afterward, he got punched again.

Eight heard the car’s oddly noisy engine start to fade away again.

How weird.

Eight went back inside the bakery, considered cleaning up the window, actually did clean the window the best she could using a few towels from the storage back room thingy, threw the towels into her bag (who knows what they could be used for), slung the bag back over her shoulder, and started the concrete jungle safari back home.

  
  
  
  
  


By the time the tent’s alley was in sight, it was late afternoon. The Sun looked like it would be down in a matter of minutes..

Three was pacing back and forth just outside the alley, staring at the ground; the Cap’n was asleep, slumped against the wall.

Three heard Eight’s footsteps, looked up, and her cute little crooked smile formed on her face for the first time since they left the apartment, and she dashed over and engulfed Eight in a wonderfully tight hug, and Eight promptly returned it.

Now the expedition was worth it even if Eight hadn’t found any food.

"You're an idiot," Three said over Eight's shoulder, unmoving.

"How are you feeling?" Eight asked.

"Better," Three said after a moment. "Like… I can function now. It doesn't hurt to think or talk or- move slowly anymore."

"You _ran_ to get to me," Eight said.

"Worth it."

Eight heard Three's breaths, felt her chest rise and fall; it was relaxed, content, and it made Eight feel relaxed too.

A full minute passed before Eight reluctantly broke the hug. “Looks like the Sun’s about to set,” she mumbled.

“Mmhmm,” Three said, looking disappointed that the hug was over.

“We’re surrounded by apartment buildings,” Eight said, thinking aloud. “Maybe we could climb to the top of one and watch it?”

Three thought for a moment. “Stairs don’t sound too good.”

“We don’t have to if you don’t feel up for it,” Eight said.

“No, no, I just, it’s...-” She stopped and cleared her throat. “I’m.. we can go.”

“You sure?”

“Yeah.”

“Good. I’ll lead the way,” Eight said, and she started walking to the complex’s entrance before Three could object.

The door was actually unlocked, as it swung open easily when Eight pushed on it. It lead directly to a lobby, which had an elevator and a staircase in the far corner. The two walked to the staircase, but Three hesitated when they reached it; but, Eight took Three’s hand and any doubts Three must’ve had melted away as she stepped onto the first step with Eight.

  
  
  
  


"I'm still nauseous," groaned Three quietly, indirectly complaining to Eight, now both in their respective sleeping bags.

Eight wriggled herself over to Three and wrapped her arms around her. Again. It was too irresistible.

Luckily, she again returned it. 

Three felt warm and comfy and nice and Eight hoped she gave her the same type feeling. So she asked.

"Does this help?"

"Well… yes, this, this is nice," she said.

"Good."

  
  


Three and Eight, their faces inches apart, both fell asleep smiling for the first time since the First Day. Eight didn't even have any nightmares.


	7. MakoMart, part II

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Marie's side settles in to the store. and more :)

The racket of hammer against planks ceased and Marie looked over her shoulder in the general direction of the others.

"I think that's the last window," Marie shouted.

" _No, there's one over here!_ " Four screamed from across the store.

" _How did you even hear me?!_ " Marie yelled back.

"What?!"

Wonderful.

The group had voted in the morning and agreed to devote the day to fortifying the store as it was their new base, at least for now. The only problem was that it was massive and that this might be a multi-day project.

Marie, Four, and Callie had been taking shifts, alternating between working and trying to take care of the new girl, although it seemed that only Four really knew how to talk to her. While Marie and Callie overanalyzed every move and ended up making things much more awkward than they needed to be, Four could almost hold up a regular conversation with her. It was odd, but it's good. Maybe they'll become friends, which would be nice, because Four definitely needs one. 

Time dragged. Not much of anything was happening, but Marie doesn’t know what she expected to happen. The mundaneness was good in a sense. In a few months’ time, a day where nothing happens will be a luxury. A rare and probably expensive one, too.

It was hard to judge time because the skylights were filtered in a way that only let in a weird, dim blue-ish light at all times except during night that looked very odd without any electric lights to back them up. It was very surreal and dreamlike, and Marie didn’t know whether or not she would ever get used to it.

The lacking light level meant that some areas were always dark, no matter the time [like in between the Towers (the highest isles)], and always required a flashlight to see properly. These areas, Marie assumed, didn’t really serve any usefulness except for whatever may be on the shelves.

On paper, hygiene wasn’t a problem anymore. There was enough soap and conditioner and toothpaste and etc. to last everyone years, but the need to conserve water was a big drawback there. Without being in a shower of some kind, soap and shampoo didn’t really work properly. Callie had tried during one of her breaks. 

She took some basic soap, dribbled a little bit onto her hand, rubbed them together until the soap was foamy, and tried washing her arm. Not only was it almost impossible to spread it, she said, it was also just as much of a pain to clean up as the dirt she was trying to get rid of. So soaps were off the table for now.

As for using the bathroom, everyone reluctantly agreed that the dumpsters out back were the best option.

By noon, all the windows (there weren’t very many) were boarded up and the girls were now working on all the extra entrances. They were easier due to them being ground-level, and only took a couple of hours.

The work wasn’t hard, but it sure wasn’t enjoyable to any capacity.

Marie thought it felt weird to finish so early in the afternoon, but she couldn’t think of anything else to do, so the rest of the day was dedicated to trying to figure out how have something resembling a good time. Or at least to make the damn place feel _somewhat_ welcoming.

  
  
  


Marie dropped the couch back onto the floor next to the mattress and placed her hands on her hips, satisfied.

It didn’t match the table or nightstand at all, the two of which also didn’t match each other. The whole area was a technicolor mess, but at least it was comfortable.

Marie asked Four to check her phone to see the exact time. It read 16:23, which meant light would start fading soon. It wasn’t too much of a problem, though; there were enough batteries and flashlights to last everyone years.

Four had been unusually reserved that day. Apart from talking to the Octoling girl, she only spoke when she needed to, which wasn’t normal and was therefore very disquieting. Hopefully it didn’t last for much longer. Four didn’t need this state of reclusiveness going on along with everything else.

Most of the skin on Marie’s knuckles had turned into a greenish, inflexible scab. If she had left that shirt wrapped around her hand, it would’ve been hell to take off now.

Along with washing themselves, there wasn’t any apparent way to wash clothes or dishes, so they tried to generally stick to only using the cheapest clothes and paper dishes and plastic utensils.

19:12. Everyone was done for the day, just hanging out around the little living area surrounding the mattress. A whole lot of nothing was happening. Someone would occasionally try to make small talk, but it didn’t work, so everyone just sat and relaxed. Quite honestly, Marie enjoyed doing nothing, and she had a feeling the others secretly did too.

It didn’t last long.

Marie heard a faint pounding from across the store, at the entrance. She, Four, and Callie all dragged themselves up to investigate, Four telling the girl to stay put.

The pounding briefly stopped as the three girls made their way to the entrance, but quickly resumed again. It sounded like the pounder was tired.

Marie approached the door and cut the third round of pounding off with her own knock on the door.

“ _Open up!_ ” a girl on the other side shouted.

The trio all looked at each other and grinned, probably wider than they have since the Final Fest’s close. They knew who that voice was, and they loved who that voice was.

“ _Let us in!_ ” she shouted again. “ _Now!_ ”

Callie quickly removed all the locks from the door, warning “don’t shoot yet” as she slowly opened it.

Standing behind the door were Three and Eight, looking exhausted at first, then incredulous, then a mix of relieved and euphoric. Four rushed over and pulled them into a hug, which they returned. Marie and Callie soon followed.

It was an odd, but very welcome change of pace. How much of a coincidence was it that these two happened to show up here? Who knows, but it sure was a nice one.

The embrace lasted a good 15 seconds before it became awkward and everyone broke out of it.

“How the hell are you h-” Three and Four started at the same time. “How are you here?” Four finished, visibly repressing the urge to laugh.

“I should be asking you guys the same question,” Three said. “Our decision to come here is a long story that we can go into after some rest.”

“Yeah, sleep sounds nice,” Eight added.

“We can get you guys a mattress and some blankets. There’s plenty,” Callie said, gesturing behind her, grinning.

“Oh, yes,” mused Three. “That sounds so much better than a non-insulated, vomit-stained sleeping bag on hard concrete.”

“What?” said Callie.

“Long story; will tell later.”

“Oooookay.”

Suddenly, a thought hit Marie like a Dynamo to the head. “Where’s the Cap’n?”

Three’s and Eight’s smiles vanished. “He’s missing.”

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


The frantic thudding of footsteps up the stairwell alerted the Queen of someone’s presence, and when she arrived in her room, she was already staring her down.

“Ma’am,” she wheezed, supporting herself with her hands on her knees. She almost sounded excited. “Ma’am, we caught him.”

“Caught who, Jordan?” the Queen demanded.

“The… the Squidbeak guy. Cuttlefish,” she said. “And please don’t use my real name.”

“Fine, _Scarlett._ Don’t bring it up again or I won’t call you by any name.” She paused for a moment. “If you two captured Cuttlefish, then why don’t I see him in front of me?”

“Bre- I mean, Blaze took him back to the warehouse not far away from where they were living.”

The Queen seemed to accept this. "Then what about those two girls? The Agents?"

"We couldn't have overpowered all three of them, so we took Cuttlefish while they were resting and booked it."

"That's… anticlimactic, but I must admit that it's smart."

Scarlett smiled. "Do you need me to do anything else, ma'am?"

"No, you're free for a while. You both did good. I'll have someone else cover your construction hours for tomorrow."

"Really?"

" _Yes_ , now go get Blaze and the old man back here before I change my mind. You two might get raised back up to Admin."

"Can he Blaze get more bandages? The ones he already has are soaked."

"Sure, just go."

Scarlett hurried back down the stairs, and the Queen went back to trying to modify the drill.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Things bouta get spicy. A little bit. It's uphill from here, at the very least. Stay tuned. And also thanks! You're 10,000k+ in! That's a lot!


	8. Announcement

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> *slow, suspenseful bass solo*

Three, overall, saw her current situation far more optimistically than she did two days ago. They now had a real shelter, a secure amount of resources, and the two groups were no longer separated (which was a stupid decision in the first place why did they vote for that-)

But Three wasn’t lucky enough to have something good happen to her without something bad happening to balance it out, which is why the Universe decided to make the Cap’n disappear during the walk here. 

Three and Eight explained to Four, Callie, and Marie everything that had happened to them up to their arrival. It took too long, but they looked like they processed everything, so that was good.

Then they explained their side. How they were living in a tent like Three’s group was, how Marie decided to take them to loot this store, how something bad that they didn’t want to get into yet had happened to Four, and how they found this Octoling girl in the back room. She had taken a liking to Eight as soon as she saw her, which was perfectly justified and all, but it did nothing to stop Three from feeling mildly jealous.

Four and the Squid Sisters were equally as surprised by  _ why _ Three and Eight came to the store as Three and Eight were when they found it. Eight explained how three dudes were driving around looking for people to rob, and when Eight didn’t have anything for them, they gave her advice, Which Three still didn’t quite believe. Three was fairly certain that these guys weren’t trying to rob people at all, but it doesn’t matter; what did matter was that they pointed out this store and how the people hiding in it were pretty pathetic. Three didn’t really see her friends as pathetic, but whatever.

After all the catching up was  _ actually _ over, the subject changed to figuring out what to do next, followed by Eight reminding Three and informing everyone else that Pearl was going live again today and that maybe they should try to catch it.

“Shouldn’t we try to find Gramps?” Callie countered. Which was a great counter, but it was annoying because now a massive argument was going to break out over which they should do-

“We can look for him anytime,” Four said. “Pearl is only going to say whatever she’s going to say once.”

“We don’t even know who has him or what’s being done to him,” Marie pointed out.

“What’s more important- some lazy two-minute speech or the life of a loved one?” asked Callie.

“I think I might know where he is,” Three said, and everyone shut up for a moment, which was nice. “In the warehouse that he was already taken to once.”

Everyone murmured to themselves for a moment before Eight spoke up. “I have an idea,” she announced. “We can do both. We can go to the Square to hear Pearl and then stop by the warehouse on the way back. We’d just be walking a triangle instead of a straight line.”

“I agree with Eight and also vouch for her idea,” Three said.

“We can’t trust Three, she’s biased,” Four countered.

“But I also have common sense and reason.”

“That’s what they al-”

“Shut up,” Marie said, and everyone did. “Let’s just take a vote, okay? All in favor of Eight’s idea, raise your hand.”

Everyone raised their hand.

“Well, that was easy,” Marie chuckled. “When do y’all wanna leave?

  
  
  
  


They left at 11:43 (thanks, Four) and got there maybe an hour later. They don’t know when exactly because Four had powered down her phone to save battery.

Three and Eight were walking ahead because Eight was a fast walker and Three was bored, and when they saw they Square, it was even more packed than last time. Some people had climbed on top of stores to get out of the hellish crowd on the ground; others had a small circle drawn around them and were threatening anyone that came near with their weapons, ink-based or not.

The people didn’t look quite as friendly as last time.

Just outside the Square were a few people with little stands set up, selling all kinds of random junk. Most of it was useless, but this one guy had water and this other lady had decent-looking clothes, so that’s good, probably. Although Three had no intent of buying/trading anything, she looked at what people had to offer with Eight as they waited for the others to catch up.

And a couple minutes later, catch up they did. They could tell by Three and Eights’ expressions that nothing was going on yet, so they sat against a wall and prepared to wait. 

Three was expecting the Squid Sisters to have a difficult time fending off fans, but nobody really gave them any attention, surprisingly. They mostly just got smiles and weird glares. It kinda makes sense that people around the Square may prefer Off the Hook over them.

Luckily, they didn’t have to wait very long, as the static on all the screens was replaced by Pearl, in her Chaos dress, grinning wide like usual.

“Hello, everybody!” she called. “How are y’all doing? Good? Good.

“Sorry about that long wait. Life is hard, now. Even for me. I honestly didn’t expect it, but the challenge is welcome.

“More importantly, though, is that I’m trying to figure out a way to get you guys medical supplies, because I know being sick during times like these is no fun.”

That’s right, Pearl.

“I have to do it carefully, because if I don’t, the people who get there first will take as much as they can and leave almost nothing left. And I can’t really just deliver it, that’s dangerous and we don’t have an efficient form of communication. I’ve gotta play it smart, y’know?

“Hopefully I get that sorted out soon. I don’t want anyone dying of dysentery or chlamydia or damnation or something.

“So, has anyone been wondering what happened to Grizzco, or is that just me? I’m pretty sure Mr. Grizz was on my team, so where'd he go? Kinda worrying if you ask me. We’re still in the heptdecannual salmonid migration. Who knows what’ll happen without people working shifts, huh?”

She looked like she was running out of things to say, but what she has already said was fairly useful, so that’s fine.

“What’s wrong with her?” Four mumbled under her breath, Three barely hearing.

“Whaddaya mean?” Three asked.

“It’s like she’s excited to see the salmonids start mauling people. Fucking lunatic,” Four said, each word dripping with something.. probably biohazardous, which was… unusually agressive for her, but Three would worry about it later. Pearl was still talking.

“-next announcement, the screens at Booyah Base in the Plaza will also start displaying them so that the Square doesn’t get too crowded. I want everyone to have a chance to see these, even you Order folks.

“Speaking of which, I can’t tell whether or not it felt better for you to win or to lose the Final Fest. Losing sucks for the normal reasons, but if you won, you know that you contributed to this,” Pearl mused. Four was basically hissing at this point.

“All of you who were on my team, just because you won doesn’t mean you get to stomp on whoever was on Team Order for the rest of your life. They and Marina put up a great fight, and some of my closest friends were on Team Order, and I bet that they’re thriving better than 95% of everyone else.” Three, Eight, and Marie performed a three-way high five.

“Remember, the Square is on the far opposite side of Inkopolis from here, across the river, so you’ll nee-” Pearl was cut off as the main screen on Deca Tower went dark. It creaked and tilted off to the left and then limply hung forward, looking just about ready to snap off and execute some poor soul. People naturally started to try to back away, but the crowd was so dense, they couldn’t get far.

The big screen was apparently the only one with sound, so nobody could hear Pearl anymore, although she did look confused on the secondary screens. She scrambled for a piece of paper and a pen, messily scribbled down “next broadcast 6 days” and held it to the camera for all to see, and the remaining screens switched back to static as the announcement ended.

The silence was broken by some guy in the crowd shouting “Well that was hella weird,” which, yeah, good on you, guy, for saying exactly what Three and probably everyone else was thinking.

"Interesting," said Marie. And she wasn't wrong.

“Well. What now?” Callie asked.

“Guess we move on and head to this warehouse that our special couple was talking about,” Marie replied, which, that was unnecessary. Eight physically expressed how she thought the same.

“Then let’s go,” Three said, and then they did.

  
  
  
  


The thing about ink weapons is that when you’re splatted by one, you simply burst into ink and respawn, given you have a respawn chip. But now that public and recreational respawn points were shut off, when you got splatted, you stayed that way. Your spirit leaves your body, but there’s nowhere for it to go but up, as the chip isn’t linked to anything. You just float away, seeing the inkstain that marks your death as you slowly lose your grip on reality and your consciousness fades away for the last time and all becomes black.

Seeing the puddles of ink dotting the streets wasn't any fun, but it wasn’t nearly as bad as the corpses.

See, you only burst when killed by ink. If it’s anything else, you die normally; slowly, painfully, and you leave behind a body instead of a stain. Yeah, you might bleed out, but your body still isn’t going anywhere.

Unfortunately, because it’s armageddon and all that jazz, people don’t have any reason not to use normally unconventional weapons, meaning that you also get to see solid remains lying around every now and then. It was an unpleasant reminder of the- ...the everything.

  
  
  
  


The group made it to the warehouse just fine, if not relentlessly bored. Three noticed right away that the door’s lock she’d smashed had been replaced, and she didn’t have the ability to resmash it without the Flingza, so now we have a dilemma. The lock’s replacement confirmed that someone had been here, so at least it meant hope.

“Any ideas on how to get in?” Three asked the open air, searching the building’s perimeter.

“Maybe we can pick the lock,” Eight suggested. “Does anyone know how to do that?”

“Yes, but we’d need to find one of the very specific objects required to do it,” Marie said, glancing at her surroundings. “Us four,” Marie said, addressing everyone but Three, “Let’s each search one of those trucks. One of them’s gotta have a pin or something.” They agreed and off they went, and Three continued looking for an alternate entrance, tracing along where the walls and ground met.

The warehouse was way too tall and smooth to climb without any special gear, so that was out of the question. Even if Three had brought a weapon and made a path out of ink from the ground to the roof, she’d be blocked by the barrier at the top.

There were a few ports meant for loading eighteen-wheelers on the back, but they were mechanical and couldn’t be opened.

Three was contemplating trying to super jump until she got lucky enough to land on the roof, and then if that's even actually help at all, when Four called for her to come back around to the front. They found something.

It was paperclips. Callie had found several of them, so Marie would get a few tries to pick the lock.

Attempt one. The paperclip snapped.

Attempt two. Marie was gentler, but it was bending in ways she didn't want it to. Then it snapped.

Attempt three. She folded the unfolded paperclip in half, making it look something like a clothespin. The jiggling sounded promising- then it snapped.

Attempt four. Marie’s running out of paperclips. She tries bundling two of them together, probably hoping they would reinforce each other. It worked until she twisted them in a weird way and one of them snapped. She pulled it out and tried to continue with the second, but it also snapped as soon as she tried to move it. She let out a frusturated grunt and tried to pull the paperclip back out, like all the others. But this one wouldn’t budge.

While Marie struggled with the lock, Three approached the door itself and stood it down. It was several times her size physically and was probably in a higher weight class than her, but Three felt she could take it in a fight. Three had agility and smarts that the Door couldn’t even dream of.

Three slammed her foot as hard as she could into the door from behind, trying to make a lot of noise and attract any guards that could be inside. It reminded her of what Marie said she did to get into the MakoMart.

“What the fuck,” Marie shouted at Three, not as a question but moreso as a declaration. 

“I’m trying to attract guards, or something,” Three explained after her ears stopped ringing a little. She noticed that she ended up giving the door a sizable dent. Understandable, considering it’s made of glorified tinfoil.

“Why?” Marie asked. Everyone else just awkwardly stood around.

“So they can open the door.”

“It’s locked from the outside, dolt,” Marie said. “It has to be opened from here or it can’t be opened at all.”

“Doesn’t that mean that no one’s inside?” Eight pointed out. Marie’s expression switched to pure neutral as she stood up and walked away, before running back and repeatedly kicking the door to vent some of her anger.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oohh, hooh hohh.
> 
> :)


	9. Reckoning

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please ignore the asterisks. Just an error on my part, sorry.

Four woke up and felt like a whole lot of nothing.

That shouldn’t inherently be bad, but considering that they should be doing something * _ productive*, _ it was. It felt like the beginning of the fourth consecutive day in a row of just sitting around.

Four rolled herself off of the mattress and onto the floor. She pushed herself back up, grabbed a new pair of clothes from her pile, changed, and went to grab something to eat.

Dry cereal it was. Not bad, not great. There’s a lot of it, so it won’t matter that she’s eating just a couple bowls.

Three must’ve woken up early too, because she waltzed into the breakfast section (where plastic tables and chairs had been set up) looking barely conscious, and somewhat surreal in the dull blue light. Four asked her to prove that she was real and Three rubbed her eyes and coughed. That coupled with the fact that she hadn’t bothered to change was enough to convince Four, and she patted the chair next to her, signaling for Three to take a seat as she poured herself her third bowl.

Three, too sleepy to refuse, did, and Four got her her own bowl. 

“What kind do you want?” Four asked and then winced, as that came out much louder than she intended. Three pointed at a colorful box down the aisle facing them. Four held it out for Three to see and Three nodded. It looked like a sugary nightmare, but it wasn’t as bad as Four’s crystalline diabetes chips.

Three’s scar looked good in the dim blue light. 

Well, it still didn’t look  _ good _ , but at least it blended in a little. Gross Sea-Green looked better with Skin Blue than it did with just skin.

Three must’ve caught her staring because she shot her a weird look. At one point, the scar covered the entire top-right of her head, but it had grown much smaller now, only covering her ear and the area surrounding her right eye. That included her eye itself, turning it the same weird, glazed sea-green, a stark contrast to her other eye, a cerulean of sorts.. Her tentacle no longer showed any signs of it.

It took Three snapping her fingers for Four to look away, sheepishly, realizing she probably creeped her out.

They ate in silence for a bit and then Yellow appeared. That's what Four's been calling her in her head.

“Hi,” she said when Four glanced over at her. 

“Hungry?” Four asked. Yellow nodded.

“Whatcha want?”

“What she has,” she said, gesturing to Three.

“Sure, lemme get you a bowl and stuff.” Before Four turned to go and do that, she asked a question. “What’s your name?”

Yellow shrugged.

“What do you want to be called?”

“Don’t know.”

“How about Yellow?”

“Okay.” 

  
  
  
  
  


It was somewhere around noon now. The blue was brighter, and everyone stood around Marie, near the back of the store, chanting “Throw it! Throw it!”

In Marie’s right hand was a billiard ball, made of extremely compact plastic smoothed to feel like polished stone. It was the blue one, marked with a ‘2.’

Four had convinced the group to spend the day figuring out what store goods could be repurposed as weapons. They’d tried throwing knives, but only Three was the only one able to consistently stick the blade into the wall, so they’d moved on to something more… blunt.

Marie put her arms up to silence everyone and told them to back up. She was about ten yards away from the wall, a perfect target.

She took a stance, wound up and threw a perfect underhand… splitter? Forkball? Four didn’t really know, but Marie threw it * _ hard. _ * 

Not only did the ball dent the wall, it was dented so deep that the ball ended up stuck. Cheers arose from everyone.

Then Callie was up, with the 1-ball. She managed to throw the ball almost as hard as Marie, but she did something weird with her composure and the ball was slightly weaker. Still put a hole in the wall, though.

Three’s turn. She chose the 8-ball, for not-subtle reasons. She didn’t bother to pitch it, she just overhandedly rocketed the poor thing in the general direction of the wall, with so much force she almost lost her balance, subtle grin on her face the whole time. It impacted about six feet off the ground, and it was lodged the deepest so far. It looked like it was close to going out the other side. She earned a round of applause from the audience.

Eight’s up. For some reason, instead of choosing a fresh ball, she jumped up and fished the 8-ball back out of the wall. She walked back to the throwing line and took a few deep breaths. Then, probably without even knowing what it  _ was _ , she threw just about the scariest curveball Four had ever seen. 

It was beautiful. It looked like the ball was * _ stretching, _ * how crushingly fast Eight hurled it. It impacted the wall with a satisfying crash, and- damn.

It went clean through and out the other side, and audibly fell to the tile floor in the other room.

Cheers and applause filled the room, and Three let out a probably-louder-than-intended “Yeah!” Crushingly fast wasn’t an exaggeration.

Now it’s Four’s turn. Cue ball gripped in her left hand, she decided to try and replicate Three’s brute force. She used as force and as much of her body as she could to hurl the ball overhead toward the wall, but. Ow. Ow fuck, shoulder. Owwwww  _ ow _ .

Four collapsed to the ground, starting to cry and laugh at the same time, and everyone rushed over to see what was wrong. “My shoulder,” Four barely managed to get out between the… the noises.

“Is it dislocated?” Callie asked. Four nodded. “I- think.”

Callie pinned Four stomach-down flat against the floor, and before she could react, yanked her arm back into place. Four screamed, briefly; but she quickly recovered once she realized the pain had stopped, and focused on trying to get herself to stop crying, too.

“Good job,” Callie said, pointing at where Four’s ball had impacted. It looked just about as deep as Marie’s.

A few minutes later, after Four had fully recovered, she went to find Yellow and asked if she wanted to take a shot at the wall. She didn’t.

  
  
  


It was evening now. The rest of the day had been pretty uneventful thus far, but Four had another little plan that everyone could theoretically agree with. She somehow managed to gather everyone in one spot again, prepared herself internally, and spilled.

“We should go straight to Pearl’s mansion and give her a piece of our mind.”

No one really reacted. They all just kinda stared at her.

“It seemed like you were still forming rational thoughts about a minute ago,” Three remarked.

“Wait, wait, hear me out,” said Four. “Remember how much Pearl went on and on about how fortified her mansions were when she confirmed…  _ our _ ” -Four winced at that- “team’s win? Well I think she’s just trying to scare everyone off. It definitely looked like she was exaggerating.” Four thought back to what she had said-  _ “Anyone seen approaching my mansions will be shot on sight.”  _ How would she see them, and shot with what? Blasphemy.

“I don’t think she was talking about it for very long, actually,” Marie said. “If I remember correctly, it was just a couple lines.”

“Exactly!” Four shouted, causing a few of the group to jump. “She tried to make it sound final, like there’s nothing we can do about it, which is why I think we  _ can _ do something about it. She’s covering up weakness.”

Four felt that she’d done a decent job presenting her argument. The group considered it in silence for a moment before Eight spoke up, surprising Four: “I agree. We shouldn’t just sit here and let it happen.”

This made Three visibly distressed. “Wait, you’re willing to just go up there and  _ die _ ?”

“Don’t you want to put an end to this?” Eight reasoned.

“Yeah, but I also want you to be safe.”

“That’s why I’m on board in the first place! Once it’s over, you won’t have to constantly worry about not seeing tomorrow.”

“Hey, shush,” Callie said. “Hear Four out.”

Four continued. “I say we start walking to the nearest one from the Plaza sometime soon. We bring some food, supplies, some canned specials, use ‘em if we need to, and get inside. If Pearl’s in there, we ask questions. If she’s not, we move in and eventually check out the next mansion. Rinse and repeat.” Haha, yeah.  _ Ask questions. _ Alright, Four.

“And who put you in charge?” Three asked. Nobody replied.

“I like your idea,” Yellow said. Four reset her posture to confidant, and Eight agreed. The Squid Sisters were still considering it, and Three looked anxious, and Four almost felt bad, but she knew her plan was the best option.

Four had an idea- “Let’s take a vote. If I win, we sort out the details and we do it. If I don’t, we do something else.” She waited a moment, and then said, “All in favor, raise your hand.”

Eight, Yellow, and Marie raised their hands, and Four could feel the smile creeping onto her face.

“And all opposed?”

Only Three’s hand went up. Callie’s never moved.

“So it’s settled.”

“I know a way that’s better than walking,” Eight said. “We should go and get Three’s car.”

  
  
  
  
  
  


It was a long walk back to the Plaza, especially because Scarlett and Blaze had to drag Cuttlefish the whole time. Scarlett regretted not bringing the dolly.

While on her way across it, Scarlett wondered if they could somehow… barricade the Ibb. It was pretty narrow, only a few lanes and a couple sidewalks. No room to safely walk along the outside unless you fancied being dead.

By early morning the next day, they made it back. Maybe it’s finally time for that promotion.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeah, this was a bit of a filler/buildup chapter. Don't worry. It WILL pay off.


	10. Graffiti

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The very uneventful* trek to the Plaza, feat. Eight.

It sure is interesting how things are starting to unfold.

There is one day,  _ one day _ , to get all the way to the Plaza, and from there, Three’s apartment. It’s gonna be a ride. Eight could hear the fast music starting in her head already.

The group knew exactly how to get there- that wasn’t a problem. Time was the real stinker here.

The walking started early in the morning. Someone suggested finding bikes, but it wouldn’t be worth the time spent finding them and teaching Eight and ...Yellow, Eight thought she was?- how to use them.

So they all packed some food and supplies and set off. Eight never thought they would be ditching the store so soon, and it felt like they wouldn’t be coming back any time soon.

The walking was boring, sad, and relaxing, all at different points. Nobody really wanted to talk, which Eight was okay with, honestly.

Sometime later, they noticed a huge, dark pillar of smoke coming up from somewhere ahead, right in their path. As they got closer, they saw that it was a store being burned down. A small group of people were watching it mindlessly as if they had nothing better to do. In all fairness, they probably didn’t. It wasn’t painless to watch the destruction of the city being treated so lightly. The city which holds the only real life Eight knows.

Things got harder once office buildings and stuff started to get replaced by apartment buildings. They were packed tighter together, which meant it was harder to tell directions and harder to see threats up ahead or behind corners. It was slow going. Bikes wouldn’t have helped.

Eight couldn’t recall the last time she’d thought about  _ nothing _ like this. It must’ve really meant something about how boring the walk was. At least Three isn’t throwing up. The walk must suck even more when you have food poisoning, and probably other things contributing to that nausea, too.

Not much later, Marie said that the coast was close, and that the bridge was unmissable from there.

That made the remaining distance of that part of the walk even more boring, but at least it filled Eight with determination.

  
  
  


Marie was right. Apartments were replaced with houses, and then houses with stores and restaurants. And then the… well, it wasn’t a  _ beach _ like Eight expected.

Eight was thinking flat sands, warmth, and people relaxing, waves crashing onto the shore, like how Four described it years ago. It wasn’t much like that.

It was just as chilly as it was everywhere else, and there weren't very many people. None of them were relaxing. And the ground wasn’t flat or sandy. It was jagged and rocky and dirt. At least Four got the waves right. And Marie got the bridge right.

The bridge was massive. Eight wished she understood units of measurement to describe it, because it was massive. It was super tall, so tall you wouldn’t be able to naturally super jump to the top, and it was so long, Eight could barely make out where it ended. Several cars were abandoned on its roads, many of them obviously having been broken into.

Marie stopped and announced, “Here it is.”

“It’s not like Four told me it would be,” Eight said.

“When?” Marie asked.

“Two years ago.”

“Not all beaches are perfect, Eight. That was the idealistic beach, not the rocky beach,” said Four.

“Doesn’t matter. We aren’t here to relax.”

“We’re here for the Ibb,” Three continued, and consider Eight completely lost.

“...What?”

“Oh. Inkopolis Bay Bridge. Ibb for short,” Three explained

“That doesn’t sound very menacing.”

“Does it need to sound menacing?” asked Four.

“What were you expecting, the Bridge of Calamitous Disasters of Grand Proportions?” Three poked despite her condition. Eight wasn’t quite in the mood to be poked. And she didn’t know what half of those words meant.

“I just had a bad feeling about it, I guess.”

“Doesn’t matter; let’s move on already,” Marie said, already walking. There was road and sidewalks leading up to the bridge, so they wouldn’t have to hike the rocks. Eight also managed to snag Three’s hand, so nice.

  
  
  


The walking was still mostly the same. Walking didn’t sound like a word anymore in Eight’s head. The view managed to pass the time a little faster, however. For about five minutes. It lost any luster its murky green water contained pretty quickly. The uneventfulness didn’t have a long life.

In the distance was what looked like- a short wooden wall? Built straight onto the bridge? Why?

Surely it can’t be Pearl. Why would she tell people to go to the Plaza and then close off the only route? Can’t be her. Probably.

As it got closer (or actually,  _ it _ wasn’t getting closer, was it; they were), it was even more apparent how shabby the wall was. It looked like it was built within the past couple hours and was ready to end its short life. It honestly probably fit ‘fence’ better than ‘wall.’

Eight was debating whether or not she could use blunt force to knock it down when she noticed movement behind the wall. She thought she did, at least. Surely she can’t already be going crazy. With some effort, she stopped the group and told them to look closely.

Three ripped a mirror from a nearby car and hurled it at the wall. It reminded Eight of yesterday.

She almost laughed at the crunch of wood that sounded at impact. This was a low quality wall. However, the mirror did not go straight through.

Instead, a head poked over the edge. And then two. And then four. All in a line, staring at them from behind the wall. All their ink colors were a variation of red, and they didn’t look passiv- wait. Are they part of  _ them _ …?

Three decided to walk closer, and for one reason or another, everyone followed. Eight hustled up and whispered to Three, “ _ Does  _ anything _ about this seem familiar to you? Anything at all? _ ”

“Yeah, I bet they’re connected to the same goons who kidnapped you,” Three said, not whispering. “Red and all that.”

“ _ You’re not scared?!”  _ Eight said, still whispering.

“No,” Three stated.

“That’s gotta be them,” the second guy standing behind the wall said.

“She’s the one with the weird scar,” guy 4 said, pointing at Three.

“Wonder if the others are a threat,” guy 1 mused, "And I don't remember hearing anything about that weird yellow girl in the back." Her voice was short and sharp, just like her physique.

Three stared them down for a few seconds, and then asked, “What’s this wall for?”

“We want you to follow us,” guy 3 said, straight faced. He looked like the leader, with relatively elaborate clothing. “The rest can stay, it doesn’t matter.”

“And  _ where _ are you planning on taking me?”

“To meet the boss- the  _ Queen _ .”

“Queen of what?”

“Us.”

Brief silence as the two glared at each other.

“And what does she want with me?” 

“We don’t know, lass. Just- it’ll be easier this way if you just follow us.”

Three let out a thinking ‘hmm’ noise, and then growled, “How about I remove a corner from each of your heads and make a new one with ‘em?”

He didn’t look phased, which was impressive. Three usually did very well at intimidating people. ...Well, it did work on two of the others; they were squirming.

The leader continued. “Where are you in such a hurry to get to, anyway? Pearl and the Plaza?”

Four stepped up. “We’re going to find Pearl herself, and I won't feel sorry for anyone who gets in the way!" She unsheathed her serrated knife for emphasis.

"Maybe you shouldn't have said that," Marie commented.

The other one who Three didn't scare, guy 2, hopped over the wall and started closing the distance between the two groups. "I don't get why this has to be done, honestly, but I don't want to get kicked out. Queen's stubborn."

"Don't take another step forward!" Four yelled, and something about her voice gave Eight an awful feeling. This wasn't going to end wel-

"Do you think this knife is just for show?" Four screamed. "Do you think I'm not going to use it if you come  _ anywhere _ near me?"

"Hey, Four, calm down," Marie said, but Four didn't register it.

"I'm- well,  _ we're _ not here for you," guy 2 said, seemingly unaffected. "I think. It's her she needs, ... Three, I think it is? Y'all's got some weird names if we weren’t lied to." He turns to Four and says, "And your knife can't do a damn thing about my gun. All I've gotta do is-"

He didn't get to finish.

Four lunged forward and drove the knife into his chest, thrusting it further until it was hilt-deep.

For a brief moment, maybe a second, Four looked like she was done, panting, both hands still gripped on the hilt, the guy's eyes wide with shock. The orange evening light made it feel all the more unnatural. 

Four wasn't done.

She dragged the knife down his torso, pushing him back towards the wall in the process. Eight wouldn't ever be able to get the ripping sound it made out of her head.

Hands trembling, Four yanked the blade back out after she'd cut all the way through his shirt and pinned him against the wall. She then kicked him, right inside his new massive gash, causing him and the portion of the wall to collapse, along with his ink to spray in all directions. That wet splattering sound wouldn't be forgotten either, especially when it was coupled with Yellow's gagging. Four's knife and boot were coated in off-red.

"Do you hear me?" Four screamed, letting the rest of her energy loose. "Do you _see_ me? Now _let us go,_ _or your_ Queen _is next!_ " 

“You just killed Bars!” shouted guy 4, distressed, effectively snapping everyone back to reality. Four really just did that… wow… 

“Four!” Marie shouted. Eight was tired of all the shouting. “Stand back! You’ve already made your point.”

Four spun to face Marie, and then something clicked. The fire in her eyes and the snarl on her face suddenly vanished, and were replaced by… realization? Guilt? Eight couldn’t quite tell, but Four was definitely processing what she’d just done.

She tried to hug Marie, but Marie recoiled, and Four launched the knife into the bay and started rambling incoherent apologies, and that was when Eight couldn’t just stand there anymore.

Eight gave Four that hug, and whispered “Four, Four, it’s okay, listen” until her crying and convulsing slowed enough to show she was paying attention.

“It’s okay, Four. I get it. I know how you must feel,” Eight said over Four’s shoulder. “It can’t be much different from the first time I had to kill a sanitized soldier.”

“I’ve killed soldiers too,” Four sniffled, random pauses between words, voice broken. “That was just a guy!”

“I feel you,” said Three; the guilt had apparently gotten to her too. “I had to kill the soldiers  _ before _ they started using mind-control.”

“It’s not the same,” Four sobbed, and to be fair, it wasn’t.

“You’re right,” Eight said. “Just let it all out.”

  
  
  
  
  


By the time that whole event had passed, the other three goons were long gone. Nothing really left to do but keep moving and try to find shelter before nightfall.

Eight doesn’t know when guy 2 actually, officially died, but hopefully it was early on in the… process.

They ended up settled inside some gas station’s store. It wasn’t the best, but it could be worse.

Three set up her sleeping bag next to Four instead of Eight, which. Mmph. Fair, but. Mmph.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *but not entirely uneventful
> 
> goddamn four has to put up with all the shit


	11. Nine

Four woke up, and everything came back. It sucked, of course. Wasn’t quite the best way to start your day, nearly brought to tears over your own actions. Again. 

What arguably sucked more, in the moment, was that Three had moved somewhere else, and Four’s arm was really itchy. ...Wow, that’s a weird itc- no, that’s a tranquilizer dart. ...wait…

“Hey! Everyone! Wake up!” Four called, standing up and pulling the dart from her arm, fighting for balance. All she got in response was a couple groans and a drawn-out 'why' from Callie.

Finished putting the pieces together, Four announced, "Someone kidnapped Ivy."

This was enough for most of the group to at least sit up, although they were still disoriented and tired. Four watched as Eight looked around for a moment and the worry formed on her face.

"Where's Three?" Eight asked, clearly not doing well at processing things, although she was still ahead of everyone else.

"Gone, probably kidnapped," Four repeated. "Check your arm."

She did, pulled out the dart, and screamed with rage for the first time Four had ever seen.

  
  
  
  
  


_ There's Eight! Finally, after all this searching, this ugly, musky, fluorescent facility… Three's found her. Through a doorway, Three can see that she's tied to a table, clearly unable to move. All Three has to do is walk up and cut those ties and then- wait. No, no, no… _

_ There's an invisible wall here?! No! Not here, not now! _

_ Three pounded on the wall as a circular saw lowered from a hatch in the ceiling and Eight began to try and struggle. She wasn't accomplishing much of anything, as all her limbs were outstretched and chained. _

_ Three was sobbing, but she didn't notice. Her hands were bleeding, but she didn't notice. The saw's harsh motor powered on and the red-violet started to fly as Eight's screams mixed with Three's… _

  
  
  


Ugh… that isn't how Three, or generally anyone, likes to start the day. 

Three didn't feel like opening her eyes. Honestly, she didn’t really feel like anything apart from aching and nauseous. Soon she gained enough consciousness to realize that A), she was sitting up, and B), she was bound in chains. Fucking fantastic. That generally didn't add up to a pleasant morning either.

Three forced her eyes open and tried to figure out where she was.

The room she was in was mediumish, had unpainted walls and floors, exposed lightbulbs (powerless, of course), glassless windows, and the smell of concrete. Whole place really just gave off that  _ unfinished office complex _ vibe. Especially with the safety vest in the corne- no wait that's Three's. Excellent. You've gotta love being taken somewhere in your sleep  _ even more  _ when they also steal your gear.

Also concerning about Three herself were the 4 tranquilizer darts sticking out of her bicep. That's a nice suggestion to what had happened. Three bets that while she was being dragged to wherever she was, her captors shot her again every time she stirred even the slightest bit. Despite the circumstances, this pleased Three.

The last important detail in the room was a girl wearing all red, standing idly by the door, staring at her. The same girl who'd helped take Cuttlefish and Eight a long couple of weeks ago, the same girl who's probably  _ currently _ responsible for the Cap’n, and the same girl who probably has a kidnaping fetish. She even had the same outfit- not just the red nonsense; she had the very same individual articles of clothing on. Must really be trying to make a point, or something. In her hand was a roll of bandages, which was more intimidating than reassuring.

"What's your name?" Three demanded, voice scratchier than she'd expected and hoped.

"Why's it concern you?" She retorted, her confidence catching Three off guard. It was a huge contrast to how she acted in the warehouse.

"I want to know so I have a reason to give you any respect."

"I don't need you to respect me," she replied. "My job was simply to get you here. Now you get to talk to the Queen."

Three's heard that before… yesterday. With the four goons at that poor excuse of a wall. They mentioned a Queen. "Then let me see her already. I'll give 'er a piece of my mind."

"Sure thing." She then turned and left the room.

After a few minutes of ‘nothing happens except the chains somehow grow tighter’, Three started to suspect that she'd been left to rot, but then the door (Three was surprised that there was a door installed in the first place) opened again. 

In stepped an Octoling, dressed in all red, which really seemed to be a running theme with these people. She was holding a small duffel bag, which she set to the side. "Hello," she called in fluent Inkling. "I'm the Queen. Disappointed?" The red girl followed in after her.

"I want you to know that I already have a bad impression of you," Three said, not really sure what else to say.

"I get that," she replied. "Do you know what I have you here for?"

"No." 

"We think you and your friends have relationships with Pearl that aren't very good for us." Three didn't like the little exposure to her personality that she had seen so far.

"Who's  _ we, _ again?"

"We're the Crimson," she said bluntly as if Three knew what the hell she was talking about.

"Which is…?"

"Listen, I'm the one who should be asking questions right now. Let's get that started.

"What's your name?"

Three figured her legal name was less suspicious, so she went with that. "Ivy."

"Exotic," the Queen quipped.

Annoyed, Three decided to use her trump card, even though it felt wrong to use it so early. "How did you escape?"

For a second, the Queen's stunned expression showed that it worked. But then she said, "That just proves that you know about more than you're implying." Which made Three hate her even more because she was right.

"Now I can skip this dumb information-gathering phase and get straight to the point.

"I don't like what you and your buddies stand for, so I'm going to send them a message and I'm going to make it count." The Queen went digging through the bag she set down and continued. What they stood for? Wha-

"And if it wasn't clear, I chose you because you're the leader type. People generally don't feel too great when their leader is humbled. You know I know." And from the bag, she removed a cleaver. How pleasant.

"I don't respect you enough to capitalize your name in my head," Three said, because there really wasn't much else she could do. 

"You don't get your satisfaction because I don't even know what that means," the queen said, and wow. She understood Three on a level that Three was not comfortable being understood on by a stranger. She walked over to Three, twirling the knife nonchalantly, and asked, "What's your dominant hand?"

After briefly thinking about whether or not the queen would spare her choice  _ and _ if she'd anticipate Three lying, Three said "Left."

"Lay your left hand on the floor, Ivy." Which, cool, Three's dominant hand would live. She guessed right.

Now, Three's done a lot of stupid things before. There was the time she filled a burst bomb with barbeque sauce, and the time she backflipped into a pool of water in Octo Valley because she lost a bet with the Cap’n, and the time she accidentally threw up on Eight one night because she was too miserable to realize that someone was currently sitting on the toilet. But this had to be a new high of some sort. Being tied up, and defying the wishes of your knife-brandishing captor. That's really stupid, and Three regretted it as soon as she did it, but she sure did do it.

"Don't call me Ivy."

"Hand on the ground or your whole arm comes off in segments!"

With some struggling against the chains, Three managed to get her left hand flat against the dirty floor. As she was secretly appreciating the queen's slight mercy, the reality of the situation crashed into Three like an Ultra Stamp thrown from point blank and Three channeled all her remaining willpower into staying calm.

"Hold out your fifth finger." 

It took some effort, but Three extended her pinky finger alone. And then with a swift  _ clank,  _ it wasn't attached to her hand anymore.

Despite how hard she was trying not to, Three screamed. If the queen was trying to hit Three's pride, it worked.

Three pressed her hand to her side in an attempt to stop the bleeding and let out an ungraceful serious of pained curses. The attempted pressure application didn't do much aside from amplifying the surging pain because of the bad angle.

“Scarlett,” the queen said, “unchain this mercenary here and give her the bandages. Then make sure she gets lost.” And she turned and made for the door.

The girl, Scarlett, stepped up to Three and stood over her, and Three couldn’t really do anything about it, still bound and bleeding.

“I’m not allowed to kill you,” she said. “So instead, I’m gonna stand here and let you bleed for a little longer.”

“What did I do to you?” Three managed to get out trying desperately but starting to fail not to cry.

“You broke Blaze’s face!” she yelled. “He lost the vision in his left eye, his ear is barely holding itself together, and there’s a massive fucking dent in half his head!”

“Roller’s still stained,” Three said as she cracked a sad grin, despite everything. She remembered exactly who Blaze was, the other idiot from the warehouse. She'd only heard him speak once and she wanted to keep it that way.

"What if I did let you bleed out, huh?!"

"Free me before your queen does and I won't kill you afterwards," Three said, gesturing to the Octoling standing in the doorway. She wasn't sure how threatening she was as a crying, bleeding, chained mess, but hey, it's always worth a shot.

Scarlett sighed, pulled out the key and removed the padlock from behind Three's back, out of her field of view completely. Three felt the chains loosen, but the last thing she wanted to do was stand right then. The chains had left green marks all over Three's body where they'd dug into her skin. "Give me the bandages," Three said, voice heavily wavering.

Scarlett tossed the roll at her, and Three tried wrapping around the ugly extension of her hand with no finger to go with it. It was hard and slow; the nausea and pain didn't help. Three wrapped it as tight as she could manage, and then between the rest of her fingers and around her palm to make sure it held. There was already a growing green stain where the finger was.

When Three felt mildly satisfied, she pocketed her finger, crawled to the Hero Vest, slid it back on, she stood, staggered over to and spat on Scarlett's shoes, and walked out the door.

The whole building seemed unfinished. It seemed mostly comprised of small rooms branching off from a main hallway, which was connected to a stairwell on one end and what looked like an unfinished elevator shaft on the other. There were red people milling about all over the place, choosing not to interact. There was an unusually large concentration of Octolings, but three would think about that later. She stumbled down floors until she came across a lobby area, where she left right out the front door. Three had considered staying to look for the Cap’n, but, as much as she hates to admit it, there’s no way they’d be this stupid.

It looked to be sometime late in the morning, and it took Three a while to process where she was. Everywhere, mind and body, was sore and/or felt dysfunctional. Three knew where she was, but not where  _ where she was _ was. She didn’t remember where it was in relation to the rest of the city, so she headed to the bridge to backtrack from there.

Three’s hand pulsated with a dull, yet strong pain. This isn’t the first time she’s lost a finger, or a tentacle, or an ear, or a hand, or even an entire leg. The difference between those times and this time was respawning.

After you’re killed, a respawn point’s job is to rematerialize you exactly how you were before and stick your soul back into the ‘new’ body. This means that fixing serious injuries could become relatively easy- if you’re linked to a respawn point (which is required by law, by the way), all you have to do... is die.

Sure, you have to pay the fine at the Terminal (assuming you’re not turfing or on recon (and yes, Three has broken people’s limbs turfing before)), but hey. You have your leg back now.

Of course, the period between serious injury and death is still painful, but you never really have to worry about recovering. At most, all that’s left behind is a ring-shaped scar where your hand or leg or finger came off. And Three has plenty, and she doesn’t like them, but they’re better than being an amputee, she thinks.

But now, this finger. Which, god, this hurts. If Three was too far away from the finger when she tried to respawn, it wouldn't come with her, so now she had to not only carry it around, but preserve it, too. For who knows how many years.

Soon, Three found the bridge, and then the gas station from there. As she’d hoped, everyone was still there, trying to decide what to do about her.

Eight was the first to see her. She got up and ran over, and as much as Three hated doing it, she held Eight back. “Wait. I’m covered in blood and I puked, like, twenty minutes ago. ...but I appreciate it.” Threw thought about what she must've looked like. She was surprised Eight had even tried to touch her.

At that point, everyone else was looking over. “There you are!” said Four, surprisingly enthusiastic. 

“What happened to you? Where’s your undershirt?” Marie asked, scanning her. Of all the things to comment on. “And don’t say ‘kidnapped.’”

Eight anxiously looked Three up and down and gasped when she noticed. “Your hand,” she whispered, shocked.

“Everyone just- sit down,” Three said, pinching her forehead. “It’s a long story.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dear Talypo: I'm sorry


	12. Showstopper

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Four and co. deal with the aftermath of Three's encounter as they continue their journey.

To prove her story true, Three reached into her pocket and removed her bloody pinkie. As if the fact that it wasn’t attached to her hand wasn’t enough proof already.

Of course, Four was not pleased. She now confirmed in her head that she had a second enemy. But the Queen still isn’t first priority. First priority was going live today. 

“Well, I don’t know if there’s anything we can do about that at the moment,” Marie said. She didn't know how to deal with situations like this so she dismissed them with logic. Just like Four.

“There isn’t,” Three stated. “Let’s just keep- keep moving.”

“She’s right,” added Callie. “We see Pearl, get Three’s car, go to the mansion, look for Gramps.”

"We can't find her some painkillers or something?" Four said. "She just had a fucking finger cut off! And we're just sitting here like she's got nothing more than a little cramp in her back. She _lost_ a _finge-"_

“Let’s leave,” Yellow spoke for the first time Four’d heard in days. Good on Four for interacting with her.

And so they left. 

  
  
  


The walk wasn’t nearly as painful this time, except maybe for Three. Four wanted to try and cheer her up, but she didn’t know how. It’s very hit-or-miss and Four did _not_ want to miss. She felt pretty awful, but it couldn't be as bad as. Well.

No one asked, so Four didn’t say it, but this was her first time seeing the Plaza in person. People don’t exaggerate when they say it’s probably the best place in the whole city. It’s breathtaking.

It was massive. It looked to be maybe a 50-foot-long semicircle surrounded by shops, restaurants, places to just sit and chill, and, of course, the famed Inkopolis Tower, an equally massive, neon-green spire framing the Turfing terminal behind it.

To the left of the Tower was the studio where the Squid Sisters used to host the very news channel Pearl was using later today, and above that, a massive, static-filled screen. The studio’s window was shattered, and a small group of people were sitting inside. How they were planning on actually seeing the TV above was lost on Four.

Just like in the Square, some people were already sitting on top of stores, which were shorter and more plentiful which meant more room overall for everyone. Above the Squid Sisters’ studio was the massive screen. Four didn’t see any vendors this time; they probably didn’t have the time to set up.

The crowd wasn’t nearly as noisy as the previous times; as a result, no one, Four included, felt like talking. Except Eight to Three. Which was understandable.

Eight was trying to comfort Three and relieve her own concerns at the same time, asking a lot of questions. It might have made both of them feel better if only Three would stop being so modest and humble for two seconds. Like, you just had a fucking finger chopped off. It’s okay to show emotion. But Four kept her mouth shut. If only she was still a ‘Talkative Bastard’ or ‘Melodramatic Bastard’ or various other flavors of bastard.

Four sighed. Good thing nobody knew why.

Eight just kept getting more and more scared as Three delivered more and more fake answers.

“Are you still bleeding?”

“Uhh, maybe.”

“How much does it hurt?”

“It’s manageable.”

“How sick do you feel?”

“I can walk.”

“Are you _okay?”_

“I’ve been through worse.”

Eventually, Eight gave up and just wrapped her arms around Three, and Four saw her shell crack the tiniest bit. Too bad Eight was done with questions. Too bad Four had jealousy problems.

About half an hour of sheer nothingness happened before the static was finally replaced by Pearl. Unlike usual, she looked frantic rather than confidant and composed. As soon as her camera focused, she started and the crowd silenced.

“Listen up. I’m 99 percent positive that someone manually destroyed the TV in the Square, and I’m betting that it’s going to happen again. So I’m just gonna say what I have to say and get it over with.

“After a tidal wave of common sense flattened me yesterday, I realized that some people probably _don’t want to_ live in this city anymore. Because of this, in a month, I will allow people to leave the Inkopolis. No catch, no gimmick. In a month, if you want to get out, you can get out.

“However, nothing is allowed to come in. That holds true. If you leave, you can’t come back until it's over. So think carefully before you make a decision." Until _what's_ over?

“Secondly, I’m just as certain that there’s a rebellion forming against me. If you’re a part of that, be careful. I still have nothing against shooting threats. And I also think this _rebellion_ is behind the TV at the-” And then the sound cut out.

Pearl stopped moving as realization flashed in her eyes and she let out a swear so visibly clear thar Four’s certain she heard it. Pearl grabbed the same ‘6 days’ paper from last time and flashed it to the screen again before it fully cut out.

People began to back away from the TV as it started to lean forward. 

“God,” said Marie, which had too many possible implications for Four to care.

A harsh clanking sound came from the statue on the roof above the TV. There stood a man dressed in full red, slamming a pipe against the grated structure beneath him, a megaphone in his spare hand. What…

“Hello everyone!” he shouted through the megaphone once he had a decent percentage of the crowd’s attention. His voice was much higher than Four’d expected and it had a weird energy to it. “You know that this is a steaming load of shit, right?” 

Way to make a first impression. Four turned and whispered to Three. “I know you probably want to, but don’t say anything. I’m sure we both know exactly where that guy is from.”

Three gave Four the most saddening look Four had seen her give in a _long_ time. It was some festering mixture of anger, guilt, depression, and ‘no shit, moron’. That look stuck its rotten hand straight into Four’s head and turned off serotonin production for who knows how long. That look brought back memories with reputations of ruining entire days. At least Three probably wasn’t going to attract attention.

The guy on the tower continued. “Let’s think about this rationally. Why the _hell_ would Pearl ever let us leave? That goes against literally everything she’s done so far. Do you really trust her? Do you think she has any reason to stop indulging in her gore fantasy? Huh?”

For a moment, the only noticeable sound was a kid whimpering from somewhere in the crowd. Then the shouting of the few brave souls willing to shout began.

“Why should we trust you?”

“Stop destroying the TVs!”

“You’re from that Rebellion, aren’t you?”

“Who are you?”

He chose to answer the easiest questions. “The name’s Bill. And it's less of a _rebellion_ and more a _resistance._ We have a common enemy and we're trying to find safety in numbers. I've been tasked by the boss to take down these screens to slow down Pearl’s propaganda stream. Now you guys have a chance. Show some thanks."

His voice felt as though he was yelling, although he was only talking at only a slightly louder than normal tone, accounting for the megaphone.

“We don’t want to make enemies,” he continued, tossing and catching the pipe, “and we’re not gonna beg you to join us either. All we want is that you open your minds a little bit, see that what Pearl’s doing is unforgivable. That’s all. Any questions?”

“What if I followed you back to wherever you came from?” Marie asked.

“Then you’ll die,” he said, pulling a lead-based gun from his pocket. “I wouldn’t recommend it unless you wanna become an ally. Also, are you…” Bill stopped himself before he could point out Marie and cause things to get messy. Four had to respect him for that.

“What if Pearl catches you?” someone shouted from the crowd.

“Then one of us dies.”

The crowd broke out with murmurs of mixed opinions- some excited, some disgusted, some simply intrigued. Four felt an expired cocktail of all three. Pearl bad, Crimson bad, but they don’t like each other either. Unless this Bill guy is a fake. But then wouldn’t he have been hunted down…?

“When will you leave?” someone else shouted.

“As soon as I’m not wanted.”

_THEN LEAVE!,_ Four wanted to scream. But she didn’t.

The crowd remained almost entirely silent, everyone opting to just stare at him.

“Based on this, I’m assuming I’m not wanted anymore,” Bill said, “so I’ll go. Bye!” And then he disappeared behind the colorful statue.

“What. The fuck?” said Eight, which really says something coming from her. The general volume of the crowd quadrupled.

Callie and Marie led them to a quieter area so that they could hear each other without screaming, because nobody wanted to deal with screaming right then.

“Listen,” Marie said, “we can deal with whatever the hell that was later, alright? We’re already dealing with a lot, even without all our personal problems, so let’s just try to keep it simple and go straight for Three’s car. Sound fair?”

“Yeah,” answered everyone except Yellow with varying degrees of enthusiasm. Four sensed an aura of dread forming around them; not like ‘oh shit, we’re gonna die’, more like ‘well, this is gonna suck’.

  
  
  


Three’s apartment was only a couple miles away, and she knew exactly how to get there. Unfortunately, she didn’t exactly feel in tip-top shape right now, as everyone knew, so the journey was a painful mixture of asking Three for directions and getting uninformative responses. Based on the sun (her phone was dead), less than an hour had passed since they’d left the square, which wasn’t too bad, all things considered.

The apartment complex was pretty massive, which, in turn, was very scary. A lot of hiding spots in there.

After they snagged the key, they would head to the parking lot on the side and find Three’s dinky sedan that she refused to upgrade. And then they’d haul ass to the nearest gas station and pray. Simple. Hard to mess that up. Hopefully.

Four and Eight volunteered to go in for Three, as they knew it third and second best respectively and wanted to spare Three any more effort. By the look she made when Four suggested this, Three did _not_ want to be pitied, but she didn’t refuse.

The Squid Sisters stayed with Three while Eight and Four went in alone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry, this was a bit of a shorter one. Things are building up again. This is the new beginning. If I spaced chapters better, this would be the start of chapter two.


	13. Road Trippin

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> unfortunately, there are no christmas themes within this chapter.

Exhausted from climbing the stairs, Eight pushed open the door to Three’s 23rd-story apartment and took in the… almost familiar scent. It wasn’t nearly as bad as it used to be. Much less sweat, and blood, and- y’know, actually, let’s repress those memories some more. Point is, it’s better now, some might even call it good. Four forced Three to use her air freshener a few months back. Its effect was almost gone because it hadn’t been turned on in weeks, but it was still noticeable. Felt like home.

“Alright, here’s the plan,” said Four. “I’ll check the obvious places and you check the places that Three probably keeps secret from everyone except you. Deal?”

“Deal,” Eight replied.

Four headed into the kitchen and Eight went to start in Three’s room, partially because she just wanted to be there again.

Everywhere Eight checked had its own haul of memories, good and bad- the closet, where Eight got to wear real clothes for the first time, and where she hid from Three when she was angry early after the Metro. The pictures of Four, which Eight love but Three is embarrassed by. The bed, which Eight got to sleep with Three on, but which used to be stained with every bad thing a bed could be stained with.

Eight wished she knew what half the emotions she was feeling then were even called.

Eight checked the nightstand, desk, closet, under the bed, and tried to figure out if there was anywhere else in the room.

Eight sat down on Three’s bed, and then she was laying down, and then her eyes were closed and her thoughts got away from her.

Something was missing, and it was obvious who she was.

Eight missed when she and Three would lay there and binge YouTube videos, and when Three gradually showed Eight all the songs she’d ever written, and when she would wake up in Three’s arms. She missed going out to all of Three favorite restaurants, and being taught how the world worked, and easing her nightmares by sleeping next to her.

She missed how Three was. 

How did things change so fast?

Why did this have to happen?

Why isn’t there anything Eight can do to fix it?

“Eight?” asked Four.

Eight opened her eyes and turned to face her.

“I found the keys in the kitchen,” she said. “...Are you okay?”

“Yeah, what’s wrong?”

“Well, you’re crying, for one.”

Oh.

“It’s just memories,” Eight said, sitting up.

“Metro memories?”

“No, real memories.”

“Oh.”

Eight got herself together and she and Four went back down to meet the others.

“WE FOUND THE KEYS!” Four called once they came back out the entrance of the complex. Yeah. Just the keys. Eight definitely didn’t steal all Three’s flash drives, and she definitely didn’t steal the zapfish plushie from her bed, and she definitely didn’t swap her own blanket for Three’s. No way no how. Nah. None of that.

Three looked up and smiled for the first time in days, and Callie, Marie, and even Yellow all gave an applause.

Because of Three’s pronounced bias, Eight rode in the passenger seat. At least that still held true to the past.

Only 3 people could fit in the back, so Marie volunteered to sit on the roof. Based on what Four’d told her about the rematch with Octavio, Marie could handle balancing on a moving vehicle quite well.

Just because it was possible for 3 people to sit in the back doesn’t mean it was pleasant. However, maybe because nobody wanted to soil Three’s new relatively good mood, nobody complained.

Three’s car was a piece of work. Eight knew nothing about what model or brand it was, but she can still describe it. It had a boxy frame and a copperish-bronze paint job that arguably looked good with the rust overtaking the bumpers and wheels. The right mirror and rear window were cracked, the radio was broken, the cupholders were sticky and had spare change permanently glued to their floors, and the leather seats were worn and torn. Eight thought it was quite cozy. 

Three loves it. It’s one of her favorite possessions. Driving always seems to put her at ease. It’s something she’s good at, and a person like Three really needs to know that they’re good at something.

That’s why when Three turned the key and put her foot to the pedal, her muscles visibly relaxed and she grinned like Pearl used to when she bought something stupid. It was a relief for Eight, honestly. Yeah, last thing you want is for your driver to be in a bad mood, but that’s not why. She was glad that Three was finally happy again, even if just briefly.

“While my driving may concern you, don’t worry,” Three called to the rear passengers. “I one-hundred-precented two Mario Kart games.”

Contrary to what Eight had expected, the drive was pretty straight-forward. There were much less abandoned vehicles to swerve around than anticipated and the car was surprisingly not low on fuel. They made it to the gas station with no worries. The pumps were luckily controlled by air pressure, so they worked even without electricity. That is, until they themselves ran low enough on fuel.

While Three refueled the car, Callie and Marie went inside the store, brought out half a dozen gas cans and a rubber hose, filled those up too, and tossed them into the trunk. That should last a good while.

“What’s the tube for?” Eight asked.

“Eventually, all these pumps will stop working,” explained Callie. “We can use this to take fuel from abandoned cars once that time comes.”

“Smart,” Eight nodded. “Hopefully the pumps last long enough for us to not have to rely on that”

“I reckon they’ll be useless in less than a week.”

“Oh.”

They hit the road again, and Four even lent Three her phone so they could listen to Four’s supposedly large assortment of downloaded songs. Three detested most of them, but she made it work. Things were going nicely.

About 20 minutes past the gas station, Three said, “We’ve been having really good luck so far, which is cool and all, but I feel like something’s gonna happen to balance it out.”

“It’s already happened,” responded Four flatly. She held up her arm, which was riddled with dozens of long, thin scabs. Callie winced, Yellow averted eye contact.

“Oh, I, uh, shit. My bad. Sorry,” Three stammered. 

Eight and Three still didn’t know what happened to Four, and frankly, they’re not sure they wanted to know. They’re not going to push her for it.

And that ‘balance’ isn’t even including the Cap’n or the finger.

Apart from that interaction, the drive was painless and relatively brief. What normally would’ve taken at least a day took maybe 45 minutes. Hearing music for the first time in weeks was also nice. Almost felt normal.

As they neared the first mansion, Marie gave directions on how to get closer. Eight would’ve, but she’d never been to this one before.

Soon, they saw it. What they saw within it filled Eight with a wide variety of primarily negative emotions, as she assumed it did everyone else;

The windows, each last one, was illuminated with bright, electronic light.

“Are we gonna talk about this?” Marie shouted through the sunroof in disbelief.

Four stuck her head out the left window and Callie the right. Four made a pronounced sound of disgust audible even over the engine; Callie, of shock.

"If I wasn't in a good mood 5 seconds ago," Three said, "I probably would've just slammed something."

Eight doesn't know how she should feel.. about this. Was Pearl hoarding everything, including power, for herself? Why weren't there any guards? Like she said?

"Maybe it's a trap," Eight warned.

"No turning back now," said Four.

Three kept driving.

Eventually, she pulled up to the massive driveway and cut the engine. Everyone climbed out and Marie hopped off.

The equally massive double doors were wide open. Why? 

"This doesn't make any sense," Eight said. "Am I missing something?"

"No, I agree, this is stupid," Three confirmed.

"I agree with her on the slamming thing," said Yellow.

When Eight got closer, what she saw only made things ten times more confusing.

Filling the predictably luxurious entryway room were dozens of kids. Just, there. Some reading, some playing games, some just chatting. Out of or within context, the scene had no logical explanation that Eight could think of. 

"Three," Callie said. "None of us know what's going on, but I know you hate kids, so let the rest of us deal with this one. Fair?"

"Yeah," she said. She shuffled to the back of the group.

Eight turned back around to see that someone was walking out to meet them. Wonderful.

“This is stupid on our part,” Marie grumbled. “We should’ve gone around the back.”

“Are y’all the Squid Sisters?” the kid called, quickly closing the distance. “Am I hallucinating?”

“You wish,” Marie barked.

“Shit’s only gonna get weirder, isn’t it,” he smiled to himself and stopped in front of the group. “Anyways, welcome to our refuge.”

“Is Pearl here?” Four asked.

“Nope, sorry,” he said. “But we are. We’ve got electricity and water, but no service. Or food, for that matter.”

He looked to be no older than sixteen years. Simple clothes, hair, nothing looked special about him. The only thing that was special about him was that he was who greeted them.

“I don’t get it,” Callie said. “Why are there a bunch of kids here, again?”

“Most of us are from a nearby school district,” he explained. “After Pearl won the Splatfest and had her power trip on live TV, I rallied up some of my friends and classmates to break in here as soon as the apocalypse kicked in. Believe it or not, we did. It wasn’t that hard.

“Not only was Pearl wrong, it was completely unguarded, our raid plan spread around like wildfire on Snap and Squinsta and probably everywhere else. By the next day, we had hundreds of people saying they planned to go.” Eight is lost.

“I didn’t think more than maybe thirty people would show up, but I was wrong. At least 300 people of many different grades made it, and all it took to get in was to bust these doors open. It didn’t take long.” 

“We’ve kinda just been chilling here ever since,” he finished. “As of right now, my mods and I are planning on organizing search parties. You want in?”

“No,” Three deadpanned.

“We’re looking for Pearl,” Marie continued. “Do you have any idea where she is?”

“Probably in another of her, like, 40 mansions,” he answered. “Vibin’.”

“Why are we still here,” Three asked/said. “Pearl’s not.”

“Is there a library in there, by chance?” Callie asked, ignoring Three.

“Surprisingly, yes,” he answered. “Want something?”

“A road atlas.”

“Mmmm. Give us a couple minutes.” he turned and shouted inside, “HEY! Whoever the Conveyor in there is, we need a road atlas of Inkopolis out here!”

“Smart thinking,” Marie whispered to Callie. “I’m too stupid to get us everywhere, y’know.”

A distant ‘got it’ responded, and the kid turned back around. He was smiling as if he was proud of his little information transmission system.

“Conveyor?” Four asked.

“I have some kids positioned in different spots all around the mansion whose jobs are to carry things and information from one part of the building to another,” he explained. “Impressive?” It was pretty smart, honestly.

“What’s more impressive is how you supposedly can maintain control,” Three said, which is what Eight was just thinking.

“It’s not too bad,” he answered. “This is a crowd of teenage memers and gamers with little-to-no will to do anything, so they don’t have any reason not to follow simple orders. It’s honestly pretty depressing, but hey, we’re not dead yet.”

“Depression doesn’t feel like a word anymore,” Three said.

“I don’t feel like a person anymore,” he shot back. “But hey. I’m not dead.”

Mm. This is a very comfortable silence. 

“So, how’s the end of the world treating ya?” Four asked the kid.

“It’s not that bad yet,” he reasoned. “Just stressful. It just started; it’s gonna get worse.”

“He knows what’s up,” Marie commented.

“He’s probably played Borderlands,” Three added.

“Fallout,” he corrected. “And Lisa.”

Finally, the guy he sent off returned, a large book in his hands. “Road atlas,” he announced.

Mr. Party Host said thanks and sent him back in. “You’re welcome,” he said, handing the book to Callie.

Callie turned and said, “With this, we can get anywhere in the city, even without the internet working.”

“We’re old enough to know what a road atlas is,” Four said.

“I was mostly talking to Eight and Yellow here,” Callie countered.

“Oh. My bad.”

When they left, Eight and Four switched seats. Four is now with Three, and Eight is with Yellow and Callie. 

“Hey,” Eight started once Three got them back onto the road.

Yellow turned to face her and asked, “Me?”

“Yeah,” Eight said. “How are you doing?”

“I’m surviving.”

“Mm,” Eight replied. “Anything you wanna talk about?”

“No.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes, why?”

“You don’t look very happy,” Eight said. “I mean, less happy than everyone else.”

Her response surprised Eight. “...Can we talk about this later?”

“Of course. I only want to help.”

“Thanks,” Yellow replied. She seemed to be slightly more at ease than before.


	14. how bad is it

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ahh, hiatus over. for now. back to regular every-other-sunday schedule for at least the next few chapters.

  
  


How morally wrong is it to see the apocalypse as a second chance? How much does that say about a person?

Hell if Three knows.

When she looks back on her life, most of it sucked. Some parts didn’t suck, some parts  _ really  _ sucked. Even rarer, some parts  _ really didn’t _ suck. Like having her music appreciated, or Eight and Four in general. But overall, Three doesn’t like looking at her past.

The new future, however, has potential.

Sure, on one hand, people are suffering all over the city.

But in some plausible good ending, things work out. The Crimson disbands, Pearl stops abusing her power, and the survivors start a new Inkopolis. If Three somehow gets to choose, it will be renamed to Cephalopolis, because oppression  _ sucks. _

Three imagined a future where the brunt of the apocalypse is over. There’s no active threat then, so after people figure themselves out, everything should fix itself. Maybe, in that world, Three will get to live peacefully and quietly with her best friend, Four, and the love of her life, Eight, until she dies. 

Let’s just hope that world is this one.

Instead of a gas station, the group decided to look for a hotel to sleep in. Why they didn’t do that the  _ first _ time is a mystery.

Luckily, they found one on their first try. Searching around for an empty one felt like the  _ most _ unenjoyable thing to do at the time. Everyone was too tired and needed some good sleep and that cannot be postponed. Right before everyone was mercifully allowed to rest, a short discussion was held on the following day’s plan.

  
  
  
  
  


A rock flew into the glass door- and bounced off. 

“Really?” complained Four. “That should’ve at least cracked.”

“This isn’t a movie,” Three said, digging through her pack. “Real glass is stronger than you think, especially when it’s made for security.” She dragged out the crowbar she got from the MakoMart and stepped up to the door.

“Are you just gonna slam it in?” asked Four.

“No,” Three simply answered. She would just let her following actions explain everything.

She drove the crowbar’s flat end into the top left corner of the glass until it went through, a web of cracks spreading around the new hole. She violently wiggled it up and down until the glass gave way and the hole suddenly became a five-inch-long slit.

“See what I’m going for here?” Three asked.

“Yeah, I see now. High-IQ, big-brain play.”

“I really didn’t know if this was going to work,” Three said, jerking the crowbar down another foot. “Do you mind giving me a hand? My body is not happy with the amount of force I’m exerting right now.”

Four said ‘yes’ by taking the crowbar form Three and continuing what she started.

After a couple minutes, the glass was held in place by just a couple inches.

“Now you can throw a rock,” Three teased from a red concrete ball.

Four picked up a new rock and threw it, aiming for the last remaining glass supporting the rest of the glass.

She missed, but the resulting crack put enough pressure on the door for it to finally collapse anyway.

“...I hate this world,” Four grumbled.

“Same,” Three said, finally stepping into the place they had been trying to break into for a whole 3 minutes: Target.

The plan from last night was simple- everyone would split up and restock on supplies. Callie and Marie, clothes; Eight and Yellow, food and water; Three and Four, everything else. Everything else includes: tools, weapons, bathroom supplies, hygiene supplies, gloves, and canned specials. Normally you need to be 21 years of age to buy the canned specials, which is stupid because only teenagers are super into turf wars, but that obviously doesn’t matter anymore. It makes sense that easy-to-use lethal weapons like this aren’t for just anyone to buy, but it’s handled in such an inefficient way.

Anyway.

Because Three is scary, she was able to easily convince the others to let her and Four take the car. And also because it’s hers. And because she’s sick. Three’s still mad that Callie and Marie don’t own a car. It’s probably because they’re so rich, they just have everything shipped to them. Pearl and Marina travel exclusively by helicopter.

Three and Four split up to explore the store on their own, which was cool because Three would feel less guilty for taking shit for herself.

The store was dark, it smelled awful, and it looked like several people had been there before, judging by the products coating a lot of the floor. It looked like they weren’t as lucky with location choice this time. 

While grabbing everything she thought Callie and Marie wanted, Three thought about what she might like for herself. Hmmm…

If Three took a bike, an MP3 player and a pair of headphones, she could go back to her apartment without getting in the way of everyone else’s progress. She could take the flashdrive that contains twelve-hundred-plus songs from her laptop. That would be a luxury. That would keep her sane. And it wouldn’t even be that hard! Yeah, it’s selfish, but so what? isn’t everyone? No one will care. It'll be quick.

A knife would be an easy choice. They’re so impractical, but they’re so fun.

Oh, and some medication to deal with the nausea would be nice, too. Three was sure the last signs of food poisoning would wear off at any time, but she’s been thinking that same thing for almost a whole week, so that’s not worth anything. She just has to make sure Maya- Four doesn’t see because it’ll fuck with her head and that’s another avoidable problem that nobody should have to deal with right now.

Three was scanning through the electronics section, trying to figure out which player had the best battery life, when she saw Four standing in a corner, typing something on her phone. She looked up and saw Three, who had been staring at her for at least fifteen seconds.

“What’cha writing?”

“Uhhh, just the usual. Fluff and angst,” Four answered.

“Right now?”

“...Yeeah.” Sure. made total sense.

“Well, anything to keep you sane, I guess. I don’t want you snapping on me,” Three said, and then immediately winced in painful regret because WHY WOULD YOU SAY THAT TO HER?

“Uh, wait sorry I meant- I didn’t mean-”

“I get it,” Four interrupted with a sigh. “I’d be scared too.”

“I, umm, oh. Okay. Sorry.”

“Listen, don’t be, I get it,” Four said, eyes back on her phone. “Let’s just move on.”

“...okay.” Three grabbed a player at random and ran to the kitchen section because. Situation bad. Get out all costs. 

Three would’ve preferred a hunting knife, because it looks cooler, but Target’s not the kind of place for that as far as she knows.

A simple carving knife would be fine. Three chose a small-ish, non-serrated one that came with a case so it wouldn’t slash open her leg through her pocket.

Lastly, Three quieted her footsteps and made her way to the store’s pharmacy. This was the dangerous part.

To avoid making unnecessary noise, Three elected to climb over the counter.

...it worked great. Flawlessly.

Three didn’t need anything complicated. Just a flu treatment. Just something to let her walk right. Jus-

_ “Hey, Three!” _ Four called from the other side of the store, her voice reverberated and echoed.  _ “Come check this out!” _

Ugh, fine. Three doesn’t get to feel better.

She climbed back over the counter and walked in the general direction of where Four’s shout came from. After some sixty seconds of searching, Three found her, standing in front of a massive rising door, waiting for her.

“Doesn’t look like anyone’s been able to open this yet,” Four said.

“Four,” Three explained. “The front doors were intact when we got here, yet there was still shit on the floor. How else could someone have gotten in?”

“...Oh yeah.”

“-So we can probably get in there just by going around to the back. Here’s my question: is it worth it?”

“I… uhm.. Probably not.” Four was sweating by now.

Four was acting unusually nervous. Nothing.. Nothing even happened, right?

“Is something wrong?” Three asked, changing her tone.

“No. Let’s go back to the hotel. I’m stressed out right now.”

Three didn’t know what was wrong but that wasn’t what was most important. Four’s health was. “Okay.”


	15. Note in a Bottle

_ The Dire Straits of Someone who Fears that they may be a Lunatic _

_ Maya “Four” Travis _

_ @panoramicrue _

_ One: 11-21-16XXX _

  
  


_ Heya. My name is Maya if you know me from real life and Rue if you know me from my blog. I'm eighteen years old. I live in Inkopolis. About two weeks ago, I would’ve said that that was pretty cool, but that’s no longer true. _

_ It’s probably all over the news literally everywhere, but Pearl won this final fest. Whatever. As someone who was  _ on her team,  _ I can say that that’s not the important part. _

_ I don’t know if they’ve let THIS information out, but Pearl thought it would be fun and good to lock up the city and shut off electrical lines, phone service, etc. It's not cool. Let me give you a first-hand account on why it's not cool. Hopefully this gets used in court against Pearl someday. _

_ My friends have been kidnapped on two separate occasions. My stepmom's dad is missing, probably also kidnapped. My  _ best _ friend has had food poisoning for over a week now  _ and _ has a had a finger cut off by some maniac with a superiority complex or victim complex or something. Things have happened to me that I'm not comfortable thinking about yet, yet alone writing about. It's only been two weeks and I already feel like I'm going to lose it. It’s been TWO WEEKS. _

_ Sure, dealing with my friends is stressful, but at least they're here. If they  _ weren't _ for whatever reason, I probably wouldn't have lasted this long. Normally I wouldn't call them by name for the sake of privacy, but that doesn't matter anymore. Ivy Yates. Eight. Callie and Marie Cuttlefish. Thank you. I love you. _

_ And no, I haven't forgotten about you, online friends.  _ [REDACTED] _ , _ [REDACTED], [REDACTED], and [REDACTED] _. You four have helped me out with a lot over the past few years. If you see this, I am forever grateful for meeting you. And to the rest of you, you're why I still have my passions. I haven't forgotten you. _

_ Back to the point at hand. _

_ Pearl's a monster. I don't know why she did what she did. Maybe she thou _

Oh, uhh. Three's just. Staring at her.

"What’cha writing?” she asked.

“Uhhh, just the usual. Fluff and angst,” Four answered.

“Right now?”

“...Yeeah.” Yep mhmm that's what she was doing.

“Well, anything to keep you sane, I guess," Three said. "I don’t want you snapping on me.” Following that, she winced like she just stepped on and consequently crushed a kitten. Four doesn't blame her. She didn't mean it.

“Uh, wait sorry I meant- I didn’t mean-”

“I get it,” Four interrupted with a sigh. “I’d be scared too.”

“I, umm, oh. Okay. Sorry.”

“Listen, don’t be, I get it,” Four said, eyes back on her phone. “Let’s just move on.”

“...okay,” Three said with uncertainty before speedwalking away.

Four started walking to the back of the store in the opposite of the direction Three went.

_ …Maybe she thought it would be fun. Maybe she thought it would be fair. Maybe she forgot that if you turn off the electricity,  _ people won't respawn.  _ Whatever the reason, it's unforgivable. _

_ She’s committing mass murder, maybe genocide, and nobody cares. I thought the government would’ve stepped in by now, but nope. We can’t escape this hell. There’s only one option, but I don’t trust it- _

_ A couple days ago, Pearl broadcasted to the Plaza that next month, she reopen the city borders and let people leave in a month, as long as they never came back. That's sketchy as hell and even if there's no gimmicks, I'm sure a lot of people don't necessarily want to leave forever. _

_...I was gonna go on some kind of massive rant but I'm drained. I've already made my point. Maybe I'll write more later. Nobody's going to see this anyway. Not for a long time, if ever. _

  
  
  
  


“Maya,” Three called from the driver’s seat.

“Yeah?”

“Aren’t you sick of this?” she asked, catching Four off-guard.

“Of what?”

“All of it!! Getting pushed around like we don’t mean anything, the stress, the-” Three swerved around an abandoned car that she didn’t see soon enough. Their bumpers scraped together with more force than either of them would’ve liked.  _ “Shit!” _

“Want me to drive?” Four asked tentatively.

“Listen,” Three continued. “I know how we can take a stand. I know how we can prove ourselves and put an end to it.” Was Three finally getting sick of Pearl too?

“And how’s that?"

“I challenge her to a fight. One-on-one. Me versus their queen, no interference, no tranquilizers. Maybe then she’ll spit out where the Cap’n is and leave us alone.”

“Oh, I thought you meant Pearl.”

“We can’t deal with that until everyone else is out of the picture or else she won’t take us seriously. Take it one step at a time and let me beat the  _ shit _ out of that red asshole.”

“How could you even do that?”

“Pretend she’s broken my will and ask to join them. Gain the trust of her lackeys until they let me talk to her. Then I challenge her. She’ll do it to set me as an example. No way she’ll refuse.”

“And what if she does?”

“I kill her then,” Three muttered, eyes on the road. “Set  _ her _ as an example.”

There was silence for a few moments. Four didn’t enjoy it.

“I’m worried,” Four said.

“About which thing?”

“You.”

Four’s dramatic reveal stunned Three for a moment, but then she came back with “It’s fine. I’ll win. I have a trick.”

“I don’t mean the fight,” Four said. “I’m worried about you in general. I feel like your mental state is starting to go backwards.”

“...Oh,” Three said without a ‘sorry’ tacked on because she knew that Four wouldn’t like it.

“You don’t have to work so hard to be this big, tough, stoic leader when you’re not that. You’re caring and considerate and, also tough, but who you’re acting like right now? This isn’t you. You can take a break and de-stress. Go have a good time with Eight, or- with me. Just please stop working so hard. I want you back.”

“I can try,” Three said. “And hope.”

“That’s better than last time,” said Four with a subtle smile. “I’m proud of you.”

“Can you tell me if I get worse?”

“Of course.”

“Thanks.”

  
  
  
  


_ I said I’d write more later and that ended up being the same day. I talked to Ivy a bit. I didn’t like where it was going. But before I explain that, I have to explain some OTHER bullshit. _

_ There’s this.. Gang? Team? Organization? Whatever, there’s one that formed here called the crimson. Their gimmick is that they wear all red so that it matches their name. _

_ They remind me of Team Skull from Pokemon, but instead of having just cool dudes trying to survive being led by another cool dude trying to survive, it has goons who want to go on power trips and is lead by someone in a constant power trip. Same psycho who cut off Ivy’s finger, and the same organization who keeps kidnapping my family. _

_ On the drive back to a hotel from a looting session, Ivy brought up a plan she had to get revenge in a somewhat practical way. She thought that if she managed to challenge the queen, the crimson’s leader, to a one-on-one duel, then she’d win and leave us alone, which IS possible, but so stupid and dangerous and I don’t want her to have to do that y’know? She’d have to spend so long wearing a facade and gaining people’s trust before she’d get any opportunity, and I don’t think it would be good for her head to be alone for that long. I don’t know if I managed to talk her out of it or not, but she did at least become concerned for her health, so that’s a plus. She’s strong, but she can only take so much stress. She’s like duct tape. Near invincible until you attack from the right angle. In this case, that angle is the mental angle. She’s broken, and I will do anything to keep her from getting worse. _

  
  
  
  
  
  


_ “Pssst,”  _ whispered Three. “Don’t fall asleep yet.”

Eight rolled over in the hotel bed (SO much better than sleeping bags) to face Three, who she already knew wasn’t asleep yet. _ “Okie.” _

_ “Do you mind if we, uh,” Three said. “I haven-  _ we  _ haven’t, uh, cuddled for a while,” _ Three explained nervously. As if Eight would ever refuse the following question.

  
_ “C’mere,”  _ Eight smiled.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> uh oh


End file.
